The good which we enjoy from Heaven descends: Of God high-blest, or to incline his will, Is past, and we shall live. Whence hail to thee, To whom thus Eve, with sad demeanour meek: To me transgressor! who, for thee ordained That I, who first brought death on all, am graced So spake, so wished, much-humbled Eve; but fate Subscribed1 not: nature first gave signs, impressed 1 Consented. So in Measure for Measure, act ii. :— "Admit no other way to save his life, As I subscribe not." On bird, beast, air: air suddenly eclipsed, "O Eve! some further change awaits us nigh, Which Heaven, by these mute signs of nature, shows Forerunners of his purpose: or to warn Us, haply too secure of our discharge From penalty, because from death released Some days: how long, and what till then our life, Of flight pursued in the air, and o'er the ground, And slow descends with something heavenly fraught?" In Paradise, and on a hill made halt, A glorious apparition, had not doubt And carnal fear that day dimmed Adam's eye. The field pavilioned with his guardians bright; In their bright stand there left his powers, to seize 1 Gen. xxxii. 1. 2 2 Kings, vi. 13, sqq. 3 Warburton thinks that Milton hints at the war with Holland, which broke out in 1664, when the fleet of the Dutch was surprised and captured before war had been proclaimed-a transaction which gave great scandal to the Whigs. |