Adam. But faith and love towards the Invisible
Supreme still bind me with eternal chains.

Eve. 'Tis folly so to love as to forget

Your love may prove your enemy. So love
As not to give occasion for the birth

Of hate.

But grant love's yoke delectable
To bear what then? Is it to be preferred
Before our conjugal bond, love's proper pledge?
What ill have I committed half so bad

As this, to call in question the true faith
Of your own wife? For shame! Can I be blest,
And yet suspected, vilified? I must

Indeed become most hateful, if I fail

Of love from him whose love is more than life!

Adam. Thy words have half unmann'd me. Equal cares
Perplex my harrassed soul: the love of God—
The love of woman-mighty both, and strong
Necessities of nature. If I break his will
He holds me his despiser; and if her's,
She calls herself suspected. How my heart
Is urged betwixt the opposing tides of love!
Even like a narrow shore, washed by the waves
Of storm-embattled oceans, so my soul
Is wrought by the stern conflict of desires
And passionate aspirations. O my God!
Till now I nothing else have loved but Thee;
I loved Thee even in her: because she seemed
Thy second image-thy pure spiritual love
Embodied in its beauty, and brought down
From heaven to earth, to lead my thought-racked soul
Back to the skies. Ah! what can I deny

Eve.

To one so precious?-Unto Thee the theft
Of this sole fruit is less a bitter crime

Than breach of thy command, the last, the best,
Of conjugal affection. Therefore I

Will taste the fruit already in my hand.

O words well worthy of the name of man!
Now am I sure thou lov'st me: taste and prove
The mystic virtues of this marvellous fruit,
And learn both good and evil. God shall find
An equal, and be jealous, though in vain,
Of human deities, to whom, no doubt,
Prayers also shall be made. Alas! what now?
What sudden paleness falls upon thy cheek?
How droops thy head! Methinks the curse of Heaven,
The horrible, the avenging stroke of death
Already blights him. O my God, my God!
On me hurl all thy thunders; pour at once
Thy blasting indignation; but Oh spare!
Spare, for thy love's sake, spare my innocent husband!

Chorus of Angels.

The sun looks dim and desolate;
Its light is dark-its heat is fled,
And all the stars bewail the fate
Of man, whose glory all is dead.
And the great ocean echoes back
The dirge-note of the murmuring spheres,
And mourns the omen, dire and black,
Which wraps in shade all future years.

O hapless! O insensate man!

The deed is done, the doom is sealed,
And Heaven's eternal curse and ban
Is frowning o'er thee, half revealed,
Half hid in horrors. Now fair fame
Is gone for ever, and you stand
All naked to the blast of shame ;
An impious, perjured, exiled band.

Now immortality of life

;

Is gone, with all its boundless charms
And you are stung with the harsh strife
Of envy, hatred, and the alarms
That wait on mischief, and your heart
Lies crushed beneath the o'erwhelming sense
Of death, that never shall depart
Till the last spark of sin's offence
Is quenched in gushing penitence.

Alas, alas! we dare not tell
The vision of the bleeding woes
Which on the opening future swell,
And to the astonished sight disclose
The mystery of guilt and grief,
And pain and terror, and mad crime-
Dark tortures which have no relief,
Unless by grace and love sublime,
Nor end with finished life or time.

But ah! if He, unnamed above,
Who comes to blast and to destroy,
Should triumph over faith and love
And blight the flowers of human joy,
Will not our God, who did create,
Redeem the erring sons of men,
And make all creatures, small and great,
All holy, pure, and blest again.

N. S.-VOL. II.

4 c

ACT V.

Satan. All things have happened to my wish. I strike
My head against the effulgent stars of heaven,
And boast myself a god. Do I not sway
The aerial atmosphere, the liquid main,
And all the solid earth, both round about
Its broad circumference, and within its womb
Of fire and smoke, and blackness of despair.
My exile grows delectable. This feat
Of valorous prowess thro' all Hell shall ring
My fame, and make the envy-jabbering fiends
Right jealous of ambition, and no less
The emulous rivals of my chivalry.

Now, my revenge, take thy sweet fill, and drink
Even to the dregs the cup of ecstasy,
And so, intoxicate with others' woes,
Forget thy proper torture! Ah, proud man!
My slave, my subject now, methinks I hear
The Almighty's curse, already on the wing,
Muttering revenge. Away, and linger not.
Quit your ripe garden of delight: begone,
Ye vagrant vagabond exiles of my hate,
Rush shrieking from your Eden's gates and learn
The sweets of foreign travel. Yes, ye fools!
I give ye leave to wander; wander on
For ever and for ever. Make the most
Of your free will, ye idiots. But where'er
Ye bend your weary bleeding steps ye take
My omnipresence with you, and my curse
Of death, if not damnation. I will vex
Your wrought souls with my furies, and the lash
Of scorpion-stinging rage, and passionate hate
Shall goad ye to the dust from whence ye rose.
No flight remains, no exit, no escape
From my choice metaphysical donjon-keep-
This blasted earth. And Time, all-soothing Time,
With his benign philosophy, shall add
Fresh rapture to your torments of despair.
Yes! hie ye forth,-invest yourselves at once
With this new fee and territory, the large
The desolate waste, and thunder-smitten scope
Of your poised planet, which I'll do my
best

To make as barren and untillable
As the infernal sulphur; till your heart
Envy the blest repose of the damn'd fiends
You once so bravely scorned, and not in vain,
For they can answer insults with good grace;
Or take them, and pay interest for their wrongs.
Thus shall my vengeance ever live with you,

But with you shall not die. It shall survive
And be the precious heritage bequeathed
To your predestined progeny. Your sons
And daughters shall enjoy, as well as you,
This heir-loom of your infamy, and share
The testamentary bequest of Hell.

Satan, rejoice! Blow thy full trump of fame,
All-conquering regicide! Exult, be glad;
Cherish thy heart with lies and murders dire,
And glorify thy shame. Ay, cast thyself,
In all thy plenitude of damnèd power

And rage, into man's heart,-steep it brimful
With blasphemy and lust. Let fathers curse
Their first-born sons, and mothers wash their hands
In sucklings' blood, and ireful brethren dream
The reeking dreams of fratricide, and so
Run howling through the weird and sterile world,
Gnashing the teeth of madness, self-consumed,
And rearing oft their gory arms to heaven,
With clenched imprecations. Then shall God
Repent of making man; and Earth herself,
Sick of her own abortions, shall relapse
To Chaos and Old Night, and many a flood
Of roaring ocean strive with hidden fires
To purge the planetary pest in vain.
Adam, thou little knowest of ills like these;
Yet come they shall. The coward sense of shame
Already I discern; and you shall weave

The leafy-fruited branch, wherewith to hide
Your brand of nakedness, not so concealed
But passionate lust shall quicken in your heart,
And bring soft images of vague desire

O'er the mind's eye; and ye shall shake with fear
And impotent repentance, and shall read
Your conscious crimes reflected in the looks
Of friend and foe, and so grow pale within
With unrevealed irrevocable sins,

And hate the all-beholding day, and love
Night's pitchy blanketing. And hope shall fade,
Self-withered, self-sepulchred, in despair.

But lo, the curse of God already smites

Adam ! He stands like the mute lunatic,
When the broad moon with many-flashing fires

Blasts his crushed heart. His eye glares wildly forth
With his unutterable thoughts: his lips

Quiver with impotent eloquence. By turns
The snow-white horror chases from his cheek

That flaring blush of self-wrought infamy.

Alas, how dire the change! But list, he speaks.

Adam. What am I? where? what have I done? Begone, Spectres of horror-phantoms of despair

Eve.

Avaunt! Aha! am I the very lord
Of Eden or of Hell? Methinks I see,
With some new opened visionary sight,
The infernal gulph, and ever as I gaze
Lo the mysterious and Titanic power
Of grisly Death strides onward; and on me
Fixes his Gorgon frown. My wife, my Eve,
Dost thou not mark the goblin frantic band
Of grinning furies? Hideously they dance
Before his shadowy steps, and shake abroad
Their snake-beclotted hair, and howl, and hiss,
And shriek in their mad laughter. Oh God!
How horribly near they come. Avaunt and vanish!
Ye demon throng, ye damned sons of Night,
I hurl ye from me, ye apostate ones.

my

Heaven's curse be on ye all! And yet more close
And closer they approach, and Death, and Sin,
The monster-teeming sorceress of Hell,
Still lead them on. A ghostly train of woes
Follows interminable. Direful plagues
Of gaunt and bony Famine, and the pale
And withered phalanx of Disease, and Care,
Haggard and bowed with labour, and wild Wars,
Discord, and Battle, waving fast and far
Their blood-baptised standards. I can see
No more; such dizzy horror racks my soul.

What! art thou mad? What spectres of strange fear
Thus shake thy steadfast soul? Come, be a man;
Nor, coward-like, shrink backward from the dreams
Of your own idle fancy. They who fight
With self-created mockeries should at least
Beware of showing others they are fools.

Adam. Thou star-compelling Majesty of Heaven,
Why do thy inmost purple Spirits of light
Flash thro' the cleaving firmament; and why
Do those, the sable-vested thunder-clouds,
Scatter their spangled forest-splintering bolts
Thro' all the wizard air? Why swells the note
Of tempest, mingled with the ominous roar
That ocean, from his hollow-sounding caves,
Moans forth, like a wild wailing dirge? Behold,
Omnipotent God, the victim of thy doom
Naked before thee. Dost thou not extend
Thy red right hand to smite me, and prepare
The triple-forkêd, and heart-blistering fires
To scorch me into nothingness? Methinks
This vast and planet-blazoned universe,
Sinks in some huge eclipse, and all the stars
Rush to chaotic battle in the skies,
And hurl their last expiring curse on me,