Beholding shall confess, that here on Earth
God hath dispensed his bounties as in Heaven.
So saying, with dispatchful looks in haste
She turns, on hospitable thoughts intent,
What choice to choose for delicacy best,
What order, so contrived as not to mix
Tastes, not well joined, inelegant, but bring
Taste after taste, upheld with kindliest change;
Bestirs her then, and from each tender stalk
Whatever Earth, all-bearing mother, yields
In India East or West, or middle shore
In Pontus, or the Punick coast, or where
Alcinous reigned, fruit of all kinds, in coat
Rough, or smooth rind, or bearded husk, or shell,
She gathers, tribute large! and on the board
Heaps with unsparing hand; for drink the grape
She crushes, inoffensive must, and meaths
From many a berry; and from sweet kernels pressed,
She tempers dulcet creams; nor these to hold
Wants her fit vessels pure; then strews the ground
With rose, and odours from the shrub unfumed.

Meanwhile our primitive great sire, to meet

His God-like guest, walks forth, without more train Accompanied than with his own complete

Perfections; in himself was all his state;

More solemn than the tedious pomp that waits
On princes, when their rich retinue long
Of horses led, and grooms besmeared with gold,
Dazzles the croud, and sets them all agape.
Nearer his presence Adam, though not awed,
Yet with submiss approach and reverence meek,

As to a superior nature, bowing low,

Thus said. Native of Heaven! for other place
None can than Heaven such glorious shape contain;
Since by descending from the thrones above,

Those happy places thou hast deigned awhile
To want, and honour these, vouchsafe with us
Two only, who yet by sovran gift possess

This spacious ground, in yonder shady bower
To rest; and what the garden choicest bears
To sit and taste, till this meridian heat

Be over,

and the sun more cool decline.

Whom thus the angelick Virtue answered mild. Adam, I therefore came; nor art thou such Created, or such place hast here to dwell,

As may not oft invite, though Spirits of Heaven,
To visit thee; lead on, then, where thy bower
O'ershades; for these mid-hours, till evening rise,
I have at will. So to the sylvan lodge

They came, that like Pomona's arbour smiled,
With flowrets decked, and fragrant smells; but Eve,
Undecked save with herself, more lovely fair
Than Wood-Nymph, or the fairest Goddess feigned
Of three that in mount Ida naked strove,
Stood to entertain her guest from Heaven; no veil
She needed, virtue-proof; no thought infirm
Altered her cheek. On whom the Angel Hail
Bestowed, the holy salutation used

Long after to blest Mary, second Eve.

Hail, Mother of Mankind! whose fruitful womb Shall fill the world more numerous with thy sons, Than with these various fruits the trees of God

Have heaped this table !-Raised of grassy turf
Their table was, and mossy seats had round,
And on her ample square, from side to side,

All autumn piled, though spring and autumn here
Danced hand in hand. A while discourse they hold ;
No fear lest dinner cool; when thus began
Our author. Heavenly stranger! please to taste
These bounties, which our Nourisher, from whom
All perfect good, unmeasured out, descends,
To us for food and for delight hath caused
The earth to yield; unsavoury food, perhaps,
To spiritual natures; only this I know,
That one celestial Father gives to all.

To whom the Angel. Therefore what he gives (Whose praise be ever sung) to Man in part Spiritual, may of purest Spirits be found

:

No ingrateful food and food alike those pure
Intelligential substances require,

As doth your rational; and both contain

Within them every lower faculty

Of sense, whereby they hear, see, smell, touch, taste :

Tasting concoct, digest, assimilate,

And corporeal to incorporeal turn.

For know, whatever was created, needs

To be sustained and fed: of elements

The grosser feeds the purer; earth the sea;
Earth and the sea feed air; the air those fires
Ethereal; and as lowest, first the moon ;

Whence in her visage round those spots, unpurged
Vapours, not yet into her substance turned.

Nor doth the moon no nourishment exhale

From her moist continent, to higher orbs.

The sun, that light imparts to all, receives
From all his alimental recompence,

In humid exhalations, and at even

Sups with the ocean. Though in Heaven the trees
Of life ambrosial fruitage bear, and vines

Yield nectar; though from off the boughs each morn
We brush mellifluous dews, and find the ground
Covered with pearly grain: yet God hath here
Varied his bounty so with new delights,
As may compare with Heaven; and to taste
Think not I shall be nice. So down they sat,
And to their viands fell; nor seemingly
The Angel, nor in mist, (the common gloss
Of Theologians) but with keen dispatch
Of real hunger, and concoctive heat

To transubstantiate what redounds, transpires
Through Spirits with ease; nor wonder, if by fire
Of sooty coal the empirick alchymist

Can turn, or holds it possible to turn,
Metals of drossiest ore to perfect gold,

As from the mine. Meanwhile at table Eve
Ministered naked, and their flowing cups
With pleasant liquors crowned: O innocence
Deserving Paradise! if ever, then,

Then had the sons of God excuse to have been
Enamoured at that sight; but in those hearts
Love unlibidinous reigned, nor jealousy

Was understood, the injured lover's hell.

Thus when with meats and drinks they had sufficed,

Not burdened nature, sudden mind arose

In Adam not to let the occasion pass,

Given him by his great conference, to know
Of things above this world, and of their being
Who dwell in Heaven; whose excellence he saw
Transcend his own so far; whose radiant forms,
Divine effulgence, whose high power, so far
Exceeded human; and his wary speech
Thus to the empyreal minister he framed.
Inhabitant with God! now know I well
Thy favour, in this honour done to Man;
Under whose lowly roof thou hast vouchsafed
To enter, and these earthly fruits to taste,
Food not of Angels, yet accepted so,

As that more willingly thou couldst not seem
At Heaven's high feast to have fed: yet what compare?

To whom the winged Hierarch replied.

O Adam! One Almighty is, from whom
All things proceed, and up to him return,
If not depraved from good, created all
Such to perfection, one first matter all,
Endued with various forms, various degrees
Of substance, and, in things that live, of life;
But more refined, more spiritous, and pure,
As nearer to him placed, or nearer tending,
Each in their several active spheres assigned,
Till body up to spirit work, in bounds
Proportioned to each kind. So from the root
Springs lighter the green stalk; from thence the leaves
More aery; last, the bright consummate flower
Spirits odorous breathes: flowers and their fruit,
Man's nourishment, by gradual scale sublimed,