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, 66 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. |