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Of him so lately promised to thy aid,

The Woman's Seed, obscurely then foretold;

Now amplier known thy Saviour and thy Lord:
Last in the clouds from Heav'n to be reveal'd

In glory of the Father, to dissolve
Satan with his perverted world, then raise
From the conflagrant mass, purged and refined,
New Heav'ns, new Earth, ages of endless date
Founded in righteousness, and peace, and love,
To bring forth fruits, joy, and eternal bliss.

He ended; and thus Adam last reply'd:

545

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How soon hath thy prediction, Seer blest,

Measured this transient world, the race of time,
Till time stand fix'd! Beyond is all abyss,
Eternity, whose end no eye can reach.
Greatly instructed, I shall hence depart,
Greatly in peace of thought, and have my fill
Of knowledge, what this vessel can contain;
Beyond which was my folly to aspire.
Henceforth I learn that to obey is best,
And love with fear the only God; to walk
As in his presence; ever to observe

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And to the faithful, death the gate of life:
Taught this by his example, whom I now
Acknowledge my Redeemer ever blest.

To whom thus also th' Angel last reply'd:

546. To dissolve Satan, &c.: This verb more appropriately applies to world than to Satan, and must be taken in a stricter sense in its application to the former than to the latter. The expression is derived from 2 Pet. iii. 11, 12, "Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved," &c.

574. Last replied: This is the last speech of the angel, as the foregoing

This having learn'd, thou hast attain'd the sum
Of wisdom; hope no higher, though all the stars
Thou knew'st by name, and all th' ethereal pow'rs,
All secrets of the deep, all Nature's works,
Or works of God in Heav'n, air, earth, or sea,
And all the riches of this world enjoy'dst,
And all the rule, one empire: only add
Deeds to thy knowledge answerable; add faith,
Add virtue, patience, temperance; add love,
By name to come call'd Charity, the soul

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Of all the rest: then wilt thou not be loath

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To leave this Paradise, but shalt possess

A Paradise within thee happier far.

Let us descend now therefore from this top
Of speculation; for the hour precise

Exacts our parting hence: and see the guards,
By me encamp'd on yonder hill, expect
Their motion, at whose front a flaming sword,
In signal to remove, waves fiercely round.
We may no longer stay. Go, waken Eve:
Her also I with gentle dreams have calm'd,
Portending good, and all her spirits composed
To meek submission. Thou at season fit

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Let her with thee partake what thou hast heard,
Chiefly what may concern her faith to know,

The great deliv'rance by her seed to come

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(For by the Woman's seed) on all mankind:

That ye may live, which will be many days,

Both in one faith unanimous, though sad,

With cause, for evils past; yet much more cheer'd
With meditation on the happy end.

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He ended, and they both descend the hill; Descended, Adam to the bower, where Eve

one is the last speech of Adam; and they are both introduced in the same

manner.

588. Top of speculation: High eminence commanding a most extensive prospect. It may further have reference to the visions and predictions there offered to Adam.

Lay sleeping, ran before; but found her waked;
And thus with words not sad she him received:

:

615

Whence thou returns't, and whither went'st, I know: 610
For God is also in sleep, and dreams advise,
Which he hath sent propitious, some great good
Presaging, since with sorrow and heart's distress
Weary'd I fell asleep; but now lead on;
In me is no delay. With thee to go,
Is to stay here; without thee here to stay,
Is to go hence unwilling; thou to me
Art all things under Heav'n, all places thou,
Who for my wilful crime art banish'd hence.
This further consolation yet secure

I carry hence though all by me is lost,
(Such favour I unworthy am vouchsafed)
By me the promised Seed shall all restore.

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So spake our mother Eve; and Adam heard Well pleased, but answer'd not; for now too nigh Th' Arch-Angel stood, and from the other hill

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608. Found her wak'd: Newton notices an inconsistency with the Argument, which relates that Adam wakens Eve; but may he not have waked her by his running to the bower where she lay sleeping.

609. The poem ends very nobly. The last speeches of Adam and the archangel are full of moral and instructive sentiments. The sleep that fell upon Eve, and the effects it had in quieting the disorders of her mind, produce the same kind of consolation in the reader, who cannot peruse this last beautiful speech which is ascribed to the mother of mankind, without a secret pleasure and satisfaction.-A.

611. Advise: Admonish, give information, Numb. xii. 6. Adam had a vision, and Eve a dream; and God was concerned in both.

616. Is to stay here, &c.: She is now come to that temper of mind in which she thinks it Paradise wherever her husband is, as the angel had taught her before, XI. 290. So that the author makes woman's Paradise to be in company with her husband, but man's to be in himself, 587.-N.

624-34. Heliodorus, in his Æthiopics, acquaints us, that the motion of the gods differs from that of mortals, as the former do not stir their feet, nor proceed step by step, but slide over the surface of the earth by a uniform swimming of the whole body. The same kind of motion is here poetically attributed to the angels who were to take possession of Paradise.-A.

To their fix'd station, all in bright array
The cherubim descended; on the ground
Gliding meteorous, as evening mist

Risen from a river o'er the marish glides,

And gathers ground fast at the labourer's heel
Homeward returning. High in front advanced,
The brandish'd sword of God before them blazed
Fierce as a comet; which with torrid heat,
And vapour as the Libyan air adust,
Began to parch that temperate clime: whereat
In either hand the hast'ning Angel caught
Our ling'ring parents, and to th' eastern gate
Led them direct, and down the cliff as fast
To the subjected plain; then disappear'd.
They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld
Of Paradise (so late their happy seat)
Waved over by that flaming brand, the gate
With dreadful faces throng'd and fiery arms.

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Some natural tears they dropt, but wiped them soon:

645

The world was all before them where to choose

Their place of rest, and Providence their guide.
They, hand in hand, with wand'ring steps and slow,

630. Marish: Marsh, from the French marais, or the Latin mariscus, rushes commonly growing in such a situation. The word occurs in 1 Maccab. ix. 42, 45; also in Shakspeare, Henry VI. Act. 1.

635. Adust: Scorched, fiery.

637-41. An allusion is here made to the incident of Lot and his family being conducted by the angel from the doomed Sodom, Gen. xix. 15-26.

643. Flaming brand: Milton had called it a sword before, XI. 120, “and of a sword the flame;" and XII. 633, and brand here does not signify what we commonly mean by it, but a sword, as it is used in the Faery Queen of Spenser: "Which steely brand . . . . . that all other swords excelled;" and also in other more recent authors. Brando, in Italian, signifies a sword; so called, as Junius thinks, because men fought with burnt stakes and firebrands before arms were invented.-N.

647. Providence their guide: As Michael, who had hitherto conducted them by the hand was departed from them, they had no guide to their steps but the general guidance of Providence to keep them safe and unhurt.-P.

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