first warmly smote The open field, and where the unpierced shade Imbrowned the noontide bowers. Thus was this place, A happy rural seat of various view: Groves whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balm; Others whose fruit, burnished with golden rind, Hung amiable—Hesperian fables true, If true, here only—and of delicious taste. Betwixt them lawns, or level downs, and flocks Grazing the tender herb, were interposed, Or palmy hillock; or the flowery lap Of some irriguous valley spread her store, Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose. Another side, umbrageous grots and caves Of cool recess, o’er which the mantling vine Lays forth her purple grape, and gently creeps Luxuriant; meanwhile murmuring waters fall Down the slope hills dispersed, or in a lake, That to the fringed bank with myrtle crowned Her crystal mirror holds, unite their streams. The birds their choir apply; airs, vernal airs, Breathing the smell of field and grove, attune The trembling leaves, while universal Pan, Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance, Led on the eternal Spring. Not that fair field Of Enna, where Proserpin gathering flowers, Herself a fairer flower, by gloomy Dis Was gathered—which cost Ceres all that pain To seek her through the world; nor that sweet grove Of Daphne by Orontes, and the inspired Castalian spring, might with this Paradise Of Eden strive; nor that Nyseian isle, Girt with the river Triton, where old Cham, Whom Gentiles Ammon call and Libyan Jove, Hid Amalthea, and her florid son, Young Bacchus, from his stepdame Rhea’s eye; Nor where Abassin kings their issue guard, Mount Amara, though this by some supposed True Paradise, under the Ethiop line By Nilus’ head, enclosed with shining rock, A whole day’s journey high, but wide remote From this Assyrian garden, where the Fiend Saw undelighted all delight, all kind Of living creatures, new to sight and strange.
Two of far nobler shape, erect and tall, God-like erect, with native honour clad, In naked majesty seemed lords of all, And worthy seemed; for in their looks divine The image of their glorious Maker shone, Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure— Severe, but in true filial freedom