Side 153 af 239

BOOK VIII.

ADAM inquires concerning celestial motions; is doubtfully answered, and exhorted to search rather things more worthy of knowledge; Adam assents; and, still desirous to detain Raphael, relates to him what he remembered since his own creation; his placing in Paradise; his talk with God concerning solitude and fit society; his first meeting and nuptials with Eve; his discourse with the angel thereupon, who, after admonitions repeated, departs.

THE angel ended, and in Adam's ear

So charming left his voice, that he awhile

Thought him still speaking, still stood fixed to hear;

Then, as new-waked, thus gratefully replied:

What thanks sufficient, or what recompense Equal, have I to render thee, divine Historian, who thus largely hast allayed The thirst I had of knowledge, and vouchsafed This friendly condescension, to relate Things else by me unsearchable; now heard With wonder, but delight, and, as is due, With glory attributed to the high Creator? Something yet of doubt remains, Which only thy solution can resolve. When I behold this goodly frame, this world, Of Heaven and Earth consisting, and compute Their magnitudes; this earth, a spot, a grain, An atom, with the firmament compared And all her numbered stars, that seem to roll Spaces incomprehensible—for such Their distance argues, and their swift return Diurnal—merely to officiate light Round this opacous earth, this punctual spot,2 One day and night; in all their vast survey Useless besides; reasoning, I oft admire,

introduced in the second edition, in which the poem was made to consist of twelve books instead of ten.

This punctual spot.—Punctum, a mere point in comparison with the universe.

How nature, wise and frugal, could commit

Such disproportions, with superfluous hand

So many nobler bodies to create,

Greater, so manifold, to this one use,

For aught appears, and on their orbs impose

Such restless revolution, day by day

Repeated; while the sedentary earth,

That better might with far less compass move,

Served by more noble than herself, attains

Her end without least motion, and receives,

As tribute, such a sumless journey brought

Of incorporeal speed, her warmth and light—

Speed, to describe whose swiftness number fails.

So spake our sire, and by his countenance seemed Entering on studious thoughts abstruse; which Eve Perceiving, where she sat retired in sight, With lowliness majestic from her seat, And grace that won who saw to wish her stay, Rose, and went forth among her fruits and flowers, To visit how they prospered, bud and bloom, Her nursery; they at her coming sprung, And, touched by her fair tendance gladlier grew. Yet went she not, as not with such discourse Delighted, or not capable her ear Of what was high: such pleasure she reserved, Adam relating, she sole auditress; Her husband the relater she preferred Before the angel, and of him to ask Chose rather; he, she knew, would intermix Grateful digressions, and solve high dispute With conjugal caresses from his lip, Not words alone pleased her. O! when meet now Such pairs, in love and mutual honour joined? With goddess-like demeanour forth she went, Not unattended, for on her, as queen, A pomp of winning graces waited still,