No fear lest dinner cool-when thus began

All things

Our Author:-"Heavenly Stranger, please to created

taste

These bounties, which our Nourisher, from whom

400

All perfect good, unmeasured-out, descends,
To us for food and for delight hath caused
The Earth to yield: unsavoury food, perhaps,
To Spiritual Natures; only this I know,
That one Celestial Father gives to all.'

To whom the Angel :-Therefore, what he
gives
(Whose praise be ever sung) to Man, in part
Spiritual, may of purest Spirits be found

No ingrateful food: and food alike those pure
Intelligential substances require

As doth your Rational; and both contain
Within them every lower faculty

410

Of sense, whereby they hear, see, smell, touch,

taste,

Tasting concoct, digest, assimilate,

And corporeal to incorporeal turn.

For know, whatever was created needs
To be sustained and fed. Of Elements
The grosser feeds the purer: Earth the Sea;
Earth and the Sea feed Air; the Air those Fires
Ethereal, and, as lowest, first the Moon;
Whence in her visage round those spots, un-
purged
Vapours not yet into her substance turned.
Nor doth the Moon no nourishment exhale
From her moist continent to higher Orbs.
The Sun, that light imparts to all, receives
From all his alimental recompense

420

must be

fed

They In humid exhalations, and at even to their

viands

fall

Sups with the Ocean. Though in Heaven the

trees

Of life ambrosial fruitage bear, and vines

Yield nectar-though from off the boughs each

morn

431

We brush mellifluous dews and find the ground
Covered with pearly grain-yet God hath here
Varied his bounty so with new delights
As may compare with Heaven; and to taste
Think not I shall be nice.' So down they sat,
And to their viands fell; nor seemingly
The Angel, nor in mist-the common gloss
Of theologians-but with keen dispatch
Of real hunger, and concoctive heat

To transubstantiate: what redounds transpires
Through Spirits with ease; nor wonder, if by
fire

Of sooty coal the empiric alchemist

Can turn, or holds it possible to turn,
Metals of drossiest ore to perfect gold,

As from the mine. Meanwhile at table Eve
Ministered naked, and their flowing cups

With pleasant liquors crowned.

€40

O innocence

Deserving Paradise! If ever, then,

Then had the Sons of God excuse to have been
Enamoured at that sight. But in those hearts
Love unlibidinous reigned, nor jealousy

Was understood, the injured lover's hell.

450

Thus when with meats and drinks they had

sufficed,

Not burdened nature, sudden mind arose
In Adam not to let the occasion pass,

Given him by this great conference, to know

the occa

sion

Of things above his world, and of their being Adam
Who dwell in Heaven, whose excellence he saw improves
Transcend his own so far, whose radiant forms,
Divine effulgence, whose high power so far
Exceeded human; and this wary speech
Thus to the empyreal minister he framed :— 460
• Inhabitant with God, now know I well
Thy favour, in his honour done to Man;
Under whose lowly roof thou hast voutsafed
To enter, and these earthly fruits to taste,
Food not of Angels, yet accepted so

As that more willingly thou could'st not seem
At Heaven's high feasts to have fed: yet what
compare!

470

To whom the winged Hierarch replied
'O Adam, one Almighty is, from whom
All things proceed, and up to him return,
If not depraved from good, created all
Such to perfection; one first matter all,
Endued with various forms, various degrees
Of substance, and, in things that live, of life
But more refined, more spirituous and pure,
As nearer to him placed or nearer tending
Each in their several active spheres assigned,
Till body up to spirit work, in bounds
Proportioned to each kind. So from the root
Springs lighter the green stalk, from thence the
leaves

480

More aery, last the bright consummate flower
Spirits odorous breathes: flowers and their fruit,
Man's nourishment, by gradual scale sublimed,
To vital spirits aspire, to animal,

To intellectual; give both life and sense,
Fancy and understanding; whence the Soul

Raphael Reason receives, and Reason is her being,
warns Discursive, or Intuitive: Discourse
the latter most is ours,

them to be

Is oftest

yours,

obedient Differing but in degree, of kind the same.

490

Wonder not, then, what God for you saw good
If I refuse not, but convert, as you,

To proper substance. Time may come when

Men

With Angels may participate, and find

No inconvenient diet, nor too light fare ;
And from these corporal nutriments, perhaps,
Your bodies may at last turn all to spirit,
Improved by tract of time, and wing'd ascend
Ethereal, as we, or may at choice
Here or in heavenly paradises dwell,

If

ye be found obedient, and retain
Unalterably firm his love entire

Whose progeny you are. Meanwhile enjoy
Your fill, what happiness this happy state
Can comprehend, incapable of more.'

500

To whom the Patriarch of Mankind replied:O favourable Spirit, propitious guest,

Well hast thou taught the way

that might

direct
Our knowledge, and the scale of Nature set
From centre to circumference, whereon,
In contemplation of created things,

510

By steps we may ascend to God. But say,
What meant that caution joined, If ye be found
Obedient? Can we want obedience, then,
To him, or possibly his love desert,

Who formed us from the dust, and placed us here
Full to the utmost measure of what bliss
Human desires can seek or apprehend?'

To whom the Angel:- Son of Heaven and Man was

530

made perfect,

mutable

Earth, Attend! That thou art happy, owe to God; 520 not im That thou continuest such, owe to thyself, That is, to thy obedience; therein stand. This was that caution given thee; be advised. God made thee perfect, not immutable; And good he made thee; but to persevere He left it in thy power-ordained thy will By nature free, not over-ruled by fate Inextricable, or strict necessity. Our voluntary service he requires, Not our necessitated. Such with him Finds no acceptance, nor can find; for how Can hearts not free be tried whether they serve Willing or no, who will but what they must By destiny, and can no other choose? Myself, and all the Angelic Host, that stand In sight of God enthroned, our happy state Hold, as you yours, while our obedience holds. On other surety none: freely we serve, Because we freely love, as in our will To love or not; in this we stand or fall. And some are fallen, to disobedience fallen, And so from Heaven to deepest Hell. From what high state of bliss into what woe!' To whom our great Progenitor:-"Thy words Attentive, and with more delighted ear, Divine instructor, I have heard, than when Cherubic songs by night from neighbouring hills Aerial music send. Nor knew I not To be, both will and deed, created free. Yet that we never shall forget to love Our Maker, and obey him whose command

540

O fall

550