25

Her hand he seisd, and to a shadie bank,

Thick overhead with verdant roof imbowrd

He led her nothing loath; Flours were the Couch,

Pansies, and Violets, and Asphodel, [ 1040 ]

And Hyacinth, Earths freshest softest lap.

There they thir fill of Love and Loves disport

Took largely, of thir mutual guilt the Seale,

The solace of thir sin, till dewie sleep

Oppressd them, wearied with thir amorous play. [ 1045 ]

Soon as the force of that fallacious Fruit,

That with exhilerating vapour bland

About thir spirits had plaid, and inmost powers

Made erre, was now exhald, and grosser sleep

Bred of unkindly fumes, with conscious dreams [ 1050 ]

Encumberd, now had left them, up they rose

As from unrest, and each the other viewing,

Soon found thir Eyes how opnd, and thir minds

How darknd; innocence, that as a veile

Had shadowd them from knowing ill, was gon, [ 1055 ]

Just confidence, and native righteousness

And honour from about them, naked left

To guiltie shame hee coverd, but his Robe

Uncoverd more, so rose the Danite strong

Herculean Samson from the Harlot-lap [ 1060 ]

Of Philistean Dalilah, and wakd

Shorn of his strength, They destitute and bare

Of all thir vertue: silent, and in face

Confounded long they sate, as struckn mute,

Till Adam, though not less then Eve abasht, [ 1065 ]

At length gave utterance to these words constraind.

O Eve, in evil hour thou didst give eare

To that false Worm, of whomsoever taught

To counterfet Mans voice, true in our Fall,

False in our promisd Rising; since our Eyes [ 1070 ]

Opnd we find indeed, and find we know

Both Good and Evil, Good lost, and Evil got,

Bad Fruit of Knowledge, if this be to know,

Which leaves us naked thus, of Honour void,

Of Innocence, of Faith, of Puritie, [ 1075 ]

Our wonted Ornaments now soild and staind,

And in our Faces evident the signes

Of foul concupiscence; whence evil store;

Even shame, the last of evils; of the first

Be sure then. How shall I behold the face [ 1080 ]

Henceforth of God or Angel, earst with joy

And rapture so oft beheld? those heavnly shapes

Will dazle now this earthly, with thir blaze

Insufferably bright. O might I here

In solitude live savage, in some glade [ 1085 ]

Obscurd, where highest Woods impenetrable

To Starr or Sun-light, spread thir umbrage broad,

And brown as Evening: Cover me ye Pines,

Ye Cedars, with innumerable boughs

Hide me, where I may never see them more. [ 1090 ]