Now resting, blessed and hallow'd the seventh day, : 595 Fuming from golden censers, hid the mount. 600 Great are thy works, Jehovah ! infinite Thy power! what thought can measure thee, or tongue Relate thee! Greater now in thy return Than from the giant Angels: Thee that day 605 Thy thunders magnified; but to create Who can impair thee, Mighty King, or bound 615 To manifest the more thy might: his evil 620 Their pleasant dwelling place. Thrice happy Men, 625 And sons of Men, whom God hath thus advanced! Created in his image, there to dwell And worship him; and in reward to rule And multiply a race of worshippers So sung they, and the empyréan rung Inform'd by thee, might know : if else thou seek'st 630 635 640 PARADISE LOST. BOOK VIII. Adam inquires concerning celestial motions; is doubtfully answer-` ed, and exhorted to search rather things more worthy of know-ledge: Adam assents: and, still desirous to detain Raphael, relates to him what he remembered since his own creation; bis 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 fix'd to hear; Equal, have I to render thee, divine 5 Historian, who thus largely hast allay'd The thirst I had of knowledge, and vouchsafed This friendly condescension to relate Things, else by me unsearchable; now heard 10 With wonder, but delight, and, as is due, With glory áttributed to the high Creator! Something yet of doubt remains, When I behold this goodly frame, this world, 15 20 Their distance argues, and their swift return Round this opacous Earth, this punctual spot, One day and night; in all her vast survey Useless besides; reasoning I oft admire 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 seem'd Entering on studious thoughts abstruse; which Eve Perceiving, where she sat retired in sight, With lowliness majestic from her seat, 25 30 36 35 41. And grace that won who saw to wish her stay, 45 Of what was high: such pleasure she reserved, 50 Her husband the relater she preferr'd Before the Angel, and of him to ask Chose rather; he, she knew, would intermix Grateful digressions, and solve high dispute 55 With conjugal caresses: from his lip Not words alone pleased her. O! when meet now With goddess-like demeanour forth she went, 60 And from about her shot darts of desire And Raphael now, to Adam's doubt proposed, 65 To ask or search, I blame thee not; for Heaven Is as the book of God before thee set, 70 75 80 The less not bright, nor Heaven such journeys run Earth sitting still, when she alone receives The benefit Consider first, that great 90 Or bright infers not excellence: the Earth, 95 |