So said he, and forbore not glance or toy Of amorous intent, well understood Of Eve, whose eye darted contagious, fire. Her hand he seized, and to a shady bank, Thick overhead with verdant roof embowered, He led her, nothing loth; flowers were the couch, Pansies, and violets, and asphodel, And hyacinth—Earth’s freshest, softest lap. There they their fill of love and love’s disport Took largely, of their mutual guilt the seal, The solace of their sin, till dewy sleep Oppressed them, wearied with their amorous play.
Soon as the force of that fallacious fruit, That with exhilarating vapour bland About their spirits had played, and inmost powers Made err, was now exhaled, and grosser sleep, Bred of unkindly fumes, with conscious dreams Encumbered, now had left them, up they rose As from unrest, and, each the other viewing, Soon found their eyes how opened, and their minds How darkened. Innocence, that as a veil Had shadowed them from knowing ill, was gone; Just confidence, and native righteousness, And honour, from about them, naked left To guilty Shame: he covered, but his robe Uncovered more. So rose the Danite strong, Herculean Samson, from the harlot-lap Of Philistean Dalilah, and wak’d Shorn of his strength; they destitute and bare Of all their virtue. Silent, and in face Confounded, long they sat, as strucken mute; Till Adam, though not less than Eve abashed, At length gave utterance to these words constrained:
“O Eve, in evil hour thou didst give ear To that false worm, of whomsoever taught To counterfeit Man’s voice, true in our fall. False in our promised rising; since our eyes Opened we find indeed, and find we know Both good and evil, good lost and evil got: Bad fruit of knowledge, if this be to know, Which leaves us naked thus, of honour void, Of innocence, of faith, of purity, Our wonted ornaments now soiled and