Paradise Lost (Modern Library Classics)

if such pleasure be

In things to us forbidden, it might be wished, For this one tree had been forbidden ten1025.

Greedily she engorged without restraint,

And knew not eating death792

God to remove his ways from human sense,

Placed heav’n from Earth so far, that earthly sight,

If it presume, might err in things too high,

And no advantage gain

That man may know he dwells not in his own;

An edifice too large for him to fill,

Lodged in a small partition, and the rest

Ordained for uses to his Lord best known.

the rest

From man or angel the great Architect

Did wisely to conceal, and not divulge

His secrets to be scanned by them who ought

Rather admire75;

The Earth was formed, but in the womb as yet

Of waters, embryon immature involved277,

Appeared not

“O469 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 all472,

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

heav’n wakes with all his eyes44,

Whom to behold but thee, nature’s desire,

In whose sight all things joy, with ravishment

Attracted by thy beauty still47 to gaze.’

Adam the goodliest man of men since born

His sons, the fairest of her daughters Eve.

All knees321 to thee shall bow, of them that bide

In Heaven, or Earth, or under Earth in Hell