Page 83 of 239

Thereby regained, but sat devising death

To them who lived; nor on the virtue thought

Of that life-giving plant, but only used

For prospect, what, well used, had been the pledge

Of immortality. So little knows

Any, but God alone, to value right

The good before him, but perverts best things

To worst abuse, or to their meanest use.

Beneath him with new wonder now he views, To all delight of human sense exposed, In narrow room, nature's whole wealth, yea more, A heaven on earth: for blissful Paradise Of God the garden was, by him in the east Of Eden planted. Eden stretched her line From Auran eastward to the royal towers Of great Seleucia, built by Grecian kings; Or where the sons of Eden long before Dwelt in Telassar. In this pleasant soil His far more pleasant garden God ordained. Out of the fertile ground he caused to grow All trees of noblest kind for sight, smell, taste; And all amid them stood the tree of life, High eminent, blooming ambrosial fruit Of vegetable gold; and next to life, Our death, the Tree of Knowledge, grew fast by, Knowledge of good, bought dear by knowing ill. Southward through Eden went a river large, Nor changed his course, but through the shaggy hill Passed underneath ingulfed; for God had thrown That mountain as his garden mould, high raised Upon the rapid current, which through veins Of porous earth with kindly thirst up-drawn, Rose a fresh fountain, and with many a rill Watered the garden; thence united fell Down the steep glade, and met the nether flood, Which from his darksome passage now appears;

Me miserable! which way shall I fly

Infinite wrath, and infinite despair?

Book IV., lines 73, 74.