This day to be our guest. But go with speed, Our heavenly stranger; well we may afford To whom thus Eve: Adam, earth, hallowed mold, To nourish, and superfluous moist consumes. But I will haste, and from each bough and brake, Beholding shall confess that here on earth With rose and odors from the shrub unfumed. Meanwhile our primitive great sire, to meet His godlike guest, walks forth without more train Accompanied than with his own complete Perfections. In himself was all his state, More solemn than the tedious pomp that waits On princes, when their rich retinue long Of horses led, and grooms besmeared with gold, Dazzles the crowd, and sets them all agape. Nearer his presence Adam, though not awed, Yet with submiss approach and reverence meek, As to a superior nature, bowing low, Thus said: Native of Heaven, for other place Be over, and the sun more cool decline. Whom thus the Angelic Virtue answered mild: As may not oft invite, though spirits of Heaven, With flowrets decked, and fragrant smells. But Eve, Stood to entertain her guest from Heaven; no 'veil Altered her cheek. On whom the Angel "Hail!” Long after to blest Mary, second Eve. Hail, mother of mankind, whose fruitful womb Shall fill the world more numerous with thy sons, Than with these various fruits the trees of God Have heaped this table. Raised of grassy turf Their table was, and mossy seats had round, And on her ample square from side to side, All autumn piled, though spring and autumn here Danced hand in hand. A while discourse they hold, No fear lest dinner cool; when thus began Our author: Heavenly stranger, please to taste These bounties, which our Nourisher, from whom All perfect good, unmeasured out, descends, To us for food and for delight hath caused The Earth to yield; unsavory 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 ungrateful food: and food alike those pure As doth your rational; and both contain Within them every lower faculty 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 to sea, Earth and the sea feed air, the air those fires Ethereal, and as lowest, first the moon; Vapors not yet into her substance turned. Nor doth the moon no nourishment exhale In humid exhalations, and at even Sups with the ocean. Though in Heaven the trees Yield nectar; though from off the boughs each morn, Of real hunger and concoctive heat To transubstantiate: what redounds, transpires Can turn, and holds it possible to turn, As from the mine. Meanwhile at table Eve With pleasant liquors crowned. O innocence, Then had the sons of God excuse to have been Enamoured at that sight; but in those hearts Love unlibidinous reigned, not jealousy Was understood, the injured lover's hell. 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 his great conference, to know |