Chapter 26 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
Oppressed them, worn with thir amorous play. [ 1045 ]
Soon as the force of that fallacious Fruit,
That with exhilerating vapor 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 dark; innocence, that as a veile
Had shadowd them from knowing ill, was gon, [ 1055 ]
Just confidence, and native righteousness
And honor from about them, naked left
To guiltie shame hee coverd, but his Robe
Uncovered 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 constraint.
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 Honor void,
Of Innocence, of Faith, of Puritie, [1075]
Our wonted Ornaments now soild and stained,
And in our Faces evident the signs
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 heavily 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 umbrella broad,
And brown as Evening: Cover me ye Pines,
Ye Cedars, with innumerable boughs
Hide me, where I may never see them more. [ 1090 ]