So spake this oracle, then verified When Jesus, son of Mary, second Eve, Saw Satan fall like lightning down from Heaven, Prince of the air; then, rising from his grave, Spoiled Principalities and Powers, triumphed In open show, and with ascension bright Captivity led captive through the air, The realm itself of Satan long usurped, Whom he shall tread at last under our feet; Even he who now foretold his fatal bruise, And to the Woman thus his sentence turned:
“Thy sorrow I will greatly multiply By thy conception; children thou shalt bring In sorrow forth; and to thy husband’s will Thine shall submit; he over thee shall rule.”
On Adam last thus judgment he pronounced: “Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, And eaten of the tree, concerning which I charged thee, saying, ‘Thou shalt not eat thereof,’ Curs’d is the ground for thy sake; thou in sorrow Shalt eat thereof all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles it shall bring thee forth Unbid; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, Till thou return unto the ground; for thou Out of the ground wast taken: know thy birth, For dust thou art, and shalt to dust return.”
So judged he Man, both Judge and Saviour sent, And the instant stroke of death, denounced that day, Removed far off; then, pitying how they stood Before him naked to the air, that now Must suffer change, disdained not to begin Thenceforth the form of servant to assume; As when he washed his servants’ feet, so now, As father of his family, he clad Their nakedness with skins of beasts, or slain, Or as the snake with youthful coat repaid; And thought not much to clothe his enemies. Nor he their outward only with the skins Of beasts, but inward nakedness, much more Opprobrious, with his robe of righteousness Arraying, covered from his Father’s sight. To him with swift ascent he up returned, Into his blissful bosom reassumed In glory as of old; to him appeased, All, though all-knowing, what had passed with Man Recounted, mixing intercession sweet.