Food of the mind, or this sweet intercourse
Of looks and smiles, - for smiles from reason flow, To brute denied, and are of love the food,
Love, not the lowest end of human life. For not to irksome toil, but to delight,
He made us, and delight to reason joined.
These paths and bowers doubt not but our joint hands
Will keep from wilderness with ease, as wide As we need walk, till younger hands ere long Assist us. But if much converse, perhaps, Thee satiate, to short absence I could yield; For solitude sometimes is best society, And short retirement urges sweet return. But other doubt possesses me, lest harm Befall thee, severed from me; for thou know'st What hath been warned us; what malicious foe, Envying our happiness, and of his own Despairing, seeks to work us woe and shame By sly assault; and somewhere, nigh at hand, Watches, no doubt, with greedy hope to find His wish and best advantage, us asunder; Hopeless to circumvent us joined, where each To other speedy aid might lend at need. Whether his first design be to with raw Our fealty from God, or to disturb Conjugal love, than which, perhaps, no bliss Enjoyed by us excites his envy more;
Or this, or worse, leave not the faithful side
That gave thee being, still shades thee, and protects.
The wife, where danger or dishonor lurks,
Safest and seemliest by her husband stays,
Who guards her, or with her the worst endures. To whom the virgin majesty of Eve,
As one who loves, and some unkindness meets, With sweet austere composure thus replied:
Offspring of heaven and earth, and all earth's lord,
That such an enemy we have, who seeks Our ruin, both by thee informed I learn, As from the parting Angel overheard,
As in a shady nook I stood behind,
Just then returned at shut of evening flowers.
But that thou shouldst my firmness therefore doubt
To God or thee, because we have a foe
May tempt it, I expected not to hear. His violence thou fearest not; being such
As we, not capable of death or pain, Can either not receive, or can repel.
His fraud is, then, thy fear; which plain infers Thy equal fear, that my firm faith and love Can by his fraud be shaken or seduced:
Thoughts, which how found they harbor in thy breast, Adam, misthought of her to thee so dear?
To whom, with healing words, Adam replied: Daughter of God and Man, immortal Eve!
For such thou art, from sin and blame entire;
Not diffident to thee do I dissuade
Thy absence from my sight, but to avoid
The attempt itself, intended by our foe.
For he who tempts, though in vain, at least asperses The tempted with dishonor foul, supposed
Not incorruptible of faith, not proof
Against temptation. Thou thyself, with scorn And anger would resent the offered wrong, Though ineffectual found; misdeem not, then, If such affront I labor to avert
From thee alone, which on us both at once The enemy, though bold, will hardly dare, Or daring, first on me the assault shall light. Nor thou his malice and false guile contemn; Subtle he needs must be, who could seduce Angels. Nor think superfluous others' aid. I, from the influence of thy looks, receive
Access in every virtue. In thy sight
More wise, more watchful, stronger, if need were Of outward strength; while shame, thou looking on, Shame to be overcome or over-reached,
Would utmost vigor raise, and raised, unite.
Why shouldst not thou like sense within thee feel
When I am present, and thy trial choose
With me, 'best witness of thy virtue tried?
So spake domestic Adam in his care, And matrimonial love. But Eve, who thought Less attributed to her faith sincere,
Thus her reply with accent sweet renewed: If this be our condition, thus to dwell In narrow circuit straitened by a foe, Subtle or violent, we not endued Single with like defense, wherever met, How are we happy, still in fear of harm? But harm precedes not sin. Only our foe, Tempting, affronts us with his foul esteem Of our integrity: his foul esteem
Sticks no dishonor on our front, but turns
Foul on himself; then wherefore shunned or feared
By us, who rather double honor gain
From his surmise proved false, find peace within, Favor from Heaven, our witness, from the event. And what is faith, love, virtue, unassayed
Alone, without exterior help sustained? Let us not, then, suspect our happy state Left so imperfect by the Maker wise, As not secure to single or combined. Frail is our happiness, if this be so; And Eden were no Eden, thus exposed.
To whom thus Adam fervently replied: O woman, best are all things as the will Of God ordained them. His creating hand Nothing imperfect, or deficient, left
Of all that He created, much less man, Or aught that might his happy state secure, Secure from outward force. Within himself The danger lies, yet lies within his power: Against his will he can receive no harm. But God left free the will, for what obeys Reason is free; and reason he made right, But bid her well be ware, and still erect, Lest, by some fair-appearing good surprised, She dictate false, and misinform the will
To do what God expressly hath forbid. Not then mistrust, but tender love, enjoins,
That I should mind thee oft, and mind thou me.
Firm we subsist, yet possible to swerve,
Since reason not impossibly may meet
Some specious object by the foe suborned,
And fall into deception unaware,
Not keeping strictest watch, as she was warned. Seek not temptation, then, which to avoid Were better, and most likely if from me Thou sever not; trial will come unsought. Wouldst thou approve thy constancy, approve First thy obedience; the other who can know? Not seeing thee attempted, who attest? But, if thou think trial unsought may find
Us both securer than thus warned thou seemst, Go; for thy stay, not free, absents thee more; Go in thy native innocence, rely
On what thou hast of virtue; summon all:
For God towards thee hath done His part, do thine. So spake the patriarch of mankind; but Eve Persisted; yet submiss, though last, replied:
With thy permission, then, and thus forewarned Chiefly by what thy own last reasoning words Touched only, that our trial, when least prepared, May find us both, perhaps, far less prepared,
The willinger I go, nor much expect
A foe so proud will first the weaker seek; So bent, the more shall shame him his repulse
Thus saying, from her husband's hand her hand Soft she withdrew, and, like a wood-nymph light, Oread, or Dryad, or of Delia's train,
Betook her to the groves-but Delia's self, In gait surpassed, and goddess-like deport, Though not as she with bow and quiver armed, But with such gardening tools as art, yet rude, Guiltless of fire, had formed, or Angels brought. To Pales, or Pomona, thus adorned,
Likest she seemed - Pomona, when she fled Vertumnus, or to Ceres in her prime, Yet virgin of Proserpina from Jove. Her long, with ardent look, his eye pursued Delighted, but desiring more her stay. Oft he to her his charge of quick return Repeated; she to him as oft engaged To be returned by noon amid the bower, And all things in best order to invite Noontide repast, or afternoon's repose. O much deceived, much failing, hapless Eve, Of thy presumed return! event perverse! Thou never from that hour in Paradise
Found'st either sweet repast, or sound repose! Such ambush, hid among sweet flowers and shades Waited, with hellish rancor imminent,
To intercept thy way, or send thee back Despoiled of innocence, of faith, of bliss!
For now, and since first break of dawn, the Fiend, Mere serpent in appearance, forth was come, And on his quest, where likeliest he might find The only two of mankind, but in them The whole included race, his purposed prey. In bower and field he sought where any tuft
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