Poem 9

his forbidding Commends thee more, while it infers the good By thee communicated, and our want; For good unknown sure is not had, or had, And yet unknown, is as not had at all. In plain then, what forbids he but to know? Forbids us good, forbids us to be wise! Such prohibitions bind not. But if death Bind us with after-bands, what profits then Our inward freedom? In the day we eat Of this fair fruit, our doom is, we shall die! How dies the Serpent? He hath eaten and lives, And knows, and speaks, and reasons, and discerns, Irrational till then. For us alone Was death invented? or to us denied This intellectual food, for beasts reserved? For beasts it seems; yet that one beast which first Hath tasted envies not, but brings with joy The good befallen him, author unsuspect, Friendly to Man, far from deceit or guile. What fear I then? rather, what know to fear Under this ignorance of good and evil, Of God or death, of law or penalty? Here grows the cure of all, this fruit divine, Fair to the eye, inviting to the taste, Of virtue to make wise: what hinders then To reach, and feed at once both body and mind?”