Which when the Lord God heard, without delay To judgment he proceeded on the accused Serpent, though brute, unable to transfer The guilt on him who made him instrument Of mischief, and polluted from the end Of his creation; justly then accursed, As vitiated in nature. More to know Concerned not Man (since he no further knew), Nor altered his offence; yet God at last To Satan, first in sin, his doom applied, Though in mysterious terms, judged as then best; And on the Serpent thus his curse let fall:

“Because thou hast done this, thou art accursed Above all cattle, each beast of the field; Upon thy belly grovelling thou shalt go, And dust shalt eat all the days of thy life. Between thee and the Woman I will put Enmity, and between thine and her seed; Her seed shall bruise thy head, thou bruise his heel.”