Ah! in that very thought,

Sorrow so wounds my heart,

My tears so overwhelm me,

That in a sigh I seem to breath my last.

Where Adam is thy beauty? where thy grace,

That made thee dear to angels and to God?
Ah! thou alone hast dared

To stain thy nature, and to wound thy soul!
Is this? is this the way,

To please that being, who on thee bestow'd,
Whate'er thou see'st around thee, with a promise
To give thee in the stars a heav'nly mansion?
Rather on fruit forbidden

To feed, than on the living words of God
Has been thy choice, and lo!

Thou, from an angel, to a beast art chang'd!
And more than other beasts

Driven as a monster from this pleasant garden,
And thus in skins array'd; alas! I dare not
Lift up my eyes to heav'n, yet it becomes me,
Low on my knees, to view the good I lost,
And in lamenting, say

Dear seat of God, thou shouldst have been the seat

Of Adam also; but thou'rt lost to me!

Thee have I lost alas! and found in stead

Of thee, both death and hell.

O hide! in pity hide thy splendour, heav'n!
Since Adam is a sinner.

Conceal your light ye stars!

Vanish thou moon and sun!

Eternal horror be the fate of man,

Since Adam is a sinner.

Now in the faithful choir of angels cease

Ye soothing melodies

Since Adam is a sinner!

Behold! with pain behold!

How, from thy dread offence,

All things, this day appear to change their form,

All hold thee in abhorrence,

All from thy aspect fly!

Ah thou mayst well exclaim!

There, from the verdant stem and parent tree,
The rose is fled, and leaves thee but the thorn!
There sinks each flow'r, within the grassy earth
Hiding its head precipitate, and scarce

Where it display'd its pride, now shews its stalk:
Well mayst thou add, in plucking here the apple
Thou gav'st a fatal shake to ev'ry tree,

Then bringing to the ground,

Each leaf, each flow'r, and ev'ry blooming fruit.
Ah how despoil'd, and waste

All now appears to me! all shade and horrors!

Produc'd by man's rebellion to his God!

Where, where are now the gay, and sprightly birds,

That on their painted plumes,

Round me were us'd to sport, and flutter here?

Ah! your clos'd wings I see

Amidst the thickest leaves, and fearing all
The deadly snares of Adam.

Where where is now the tiger, bear and lion,

The wolf, the pard, and thousand other beasts,
Obedient all to man, and in his train?
Alas! now made voracious

Of human carnage, and of smoking blood
I now behold you all,

Sharp'ning 'gainst man the talon, and tooth.

Where now, ah! where, their young

May all the fleecy kind,

Let fall in safety, for alas! I see

No longer will they offer

Their milky dugs to thee; their dugs or offspring

Since to escape from man,

Now, now, I see them eager.
Man turn'd into a wolf

By having seiz'd an apple.

All fly, and all abhor thee,

And from thee barbarous, learns barbarity!

Hence in the earth and sea,
Beyond their custom, now
All fish, and all the beasts,
To battle seem t'invite thee,
See now the wolf and lamb,

She who of late not far from him, might wander,

See how she bleating flies from his unfaithful

Tusk! now expecting bloody violence!
Behold the hare! behold

How timid she is made, and the dog fierce

In striving for her life;

While more than native fear to flight inclines her.

Behold that dusky beast

That with white tusks of an enormous size

Extends its weighty jaw,

That now forgetting to revere the moon

Intractable ferocious!

Beyond its native temper,

Rushes in anger with its fib'rous trunk,

That serves it for a nose,

Against the horn, which the rhinoceros

Sharpens of hardest stone!

Behold the sea enrag'd,

Now by thy rage, the very sea inflam’d
Takes up the fish within its wat'ry arms,
And in a thousand caverns,

Against the mossy stones,

Now strikes, and now entombs them.

At length, behold that ox

That now beneath thy crooked yoke of wood
To turn the sterile earth

Thou must contrive to couple,

See! how he darts an eye of fire upon thee,
And foaming now, and panting, fiercely points
His crooked horn, and threatens thee with death:

And more, yet more, the earth
Provokes thee now to conflict,

Thanks to thy dire offence;

And since her bosom must by thee be wounded,

Strives with thee, for thy viands, arm'd herself
With thistles, and with thorns.

I've sinn'd! O Lord! I've sinn'd

I've sinn'd, and for my fault

My mournful heart, in weeping I distill.

Why wretched do I speak? see what a band
Of beasts, made barbarous

Of hostile beasts, now wet

With crimsons deadly stain

I see around me, darting from their caves:
Alas! what see I more? wretch that I am!
Behold from them, affrighted Eve is flying!

SCENE THE FIFTH.

ADAM and EVE.

Eve. Ah whither shall I fly? and where conceal me? Adam. Haste to my arms, O haste!

Let him who sinn'd like thee,

Like thee, become of savage beast the prey!