And mend the wracks of th’ empire, and late Rome,
And lived when every great change did come,
Had first in Paradise a low, but fatal room.
VIII
Yet nor low room, nor than the greatest, less,
If as devout and sharp men fitly guess—
That Cross, our joy, and grief—where nails did tie
That All, which always was all, everywhere;
Which could not sin, and yet all sins did bear;
Which could not die, yet could not choose but die—
Stood in the selfsame room in Calvary,
Where first grew the forbidden learned tree,
For on that tree hung in security
This soul made by the Maker’s will from pulling free.
IX
Prince of the orchard, fair as dawning morn,
Fenced with the law, and ripe as soon as born,
That apple grew, which this soul did enlive
Till the then climbing serpent, that now creeps
For that offence, for which all mankind weeps,
Took it, and to her whom the first man did wive
—Whom and her race only forbiddings drive—
He gave it, she to her husband; both did eat;
So perished the eaters, and the meat;
And we—for treason taints the blood—thence die and sweat.
X
Man all at once was there by woman slain,
And one by one we’re here slain o’er again
By them. The mother poison’d the wellhead,
The daughters here corrupt us, rivulets;
No smallness ’scapes, no greatness breaks their nets;
She thrust us out, and by them we are led
Astray, from turning to whence we are fled.
Were prisoners judges, ’twould seem rigorous;
She sinned, we bear; part of our pain is, thus
To love them whose fault to this painful love yoked us.
XI
So fast in us doth this corruption grow,
That now we dare ask why we should be so.
Would God—disputes the curious rebel—make
A law, and would not have it kept? Or can
His creatures’ will cross His? Of every man
For one, will God (and be just) vengeance take?
Who sinn’d? ’twas not forbidden to the snake
Nor her, who was not then made; nor is ’t writ
That Adam cropp’d, or knew the apple; yet
The worm and she, and he, and we endure for it.
XII
But snatch me, heavenly spirit, from this vain
Reckoning their vanities; less is their gain
Than hazard still, to meditate on ill,
Though with good mind; their reason’s like those toys
Of glassy bubbles, which the gamesome boys
Stretch to so nice a thinness through a quill
That they themselves break, and do themselves spill.
Arguing is heretics’ game, and exercise
As wrestlers perfects them. Not liberties
Of speech, but silence; hands, not tongues, end heresies.
XIII
Just in that instant when the serpent’s gripe
Broke the slight veins, and tender conduit pipe,
Through which this soul from the tree’s root did draw
Life and growth to this apple, fled away
This loose soul, old, one and another day.
As lightning, which one scarce dares say he saw,
’Tis so soon gone—and better proof the law
Of sense than faith requires—swiftly she flew
To a dark and foggy plot; her, her fates threw
There through th’ earth-pores, and in a plant housed her anew.
XIV
The plant thus abled to itself did force
A place, where no place was; by nature’s course,
As air from water, water fleets away
From thicker bodies, by this root throng’d so
His spongy confines gave him place to grow;
Just as in our streets, when the people stay
To see the Prince, and so fill up the way
That weasels scarce could pass, when she comes near
They throng and cleave up, and a passage clear,
As if for that time their round bodies flatten’d were.
XV
His right arm he thrust out towards the east,
Westward his left; th’ ends did themselves digest
Into ten lesser strings; these fingers were;
And as a slumberer stretching on his bed,
This way he this, and that way scattered
His other leg, which feet with toes upbear.
Grew on his middle part, the first day, hair,
To show that in love’s business he should still
A dealer be, and be used well, or ill.
His apples kindle; he leaves force of conception kill.
XVI
A mouth, but dumb, he hath; blind eyes, deat ears;
And to his shoulders dangle subtle hairs;
A young Colossus, there he stands upright;
And as that ground by him were conquered,
A leafy garland wears he on his head
Enchased with little fruits, so red and bright,
That for them you would call your love’s lips white,
So, of a lone unhaunted place possess’d,
Did this soul’s second inn, built by the guest,
This living buried man, this quiet mandrake, rest.
XVII
No lustful woman came this plant to grieve,
But ’twas because there was none yet but Eve;
And she—with other purpose—kill’d it quite.
Her sin had now brought in infirmities,
And so her cradled child the moist-red eyes
Had never shut, nor slept since it saw light.
Poppy she knew, she knew the mandrake’s might;
And tore up both, and so cool’d her child’s blood.
Unvirtuous weeds might long unvex’d have stood;
But he’s short-lived that with his death can do most good.
XVIII
To an unfetter’d soul’s quick nimble haste
Are falling stars and hearts’ thoughts but slow-paced.
Thinner than burnt air flies this soul, and she
Whom four new coming and four parting suns
Had found, and left the mandrake’s tenant, runs
Thoughtless of change, when her firm destiny
Confined and enjail’d her, that seemed so free,
Into a small blue shell, the which a poor
Warm bird o’erspread, and sat still evermore,
Till her enclosed child kick’d, and pick’d itself a door.
XIX
Out crept a sparrow, this soul’s moving inn,
On whose raw arms stiff feathers now begin,
As children’s teeth through gums, to break with pain;
His flesh is jelly yet, and his bones threads;
All a new downy mantle overspreads;
A mouth he opes, which would as much contain
As his late house, and the first hour speaks plain,
And chirps aloud for meat. Meat fit for men
His father steals for him, and so feeds then
One that, within a month, will beat him from his hen.
XX
In this world’s youth wise Nature did make haste,
Things ripen’d sooner, and did longer last.
Already this hot cock in bush and tree
In field and tent o’erflutters his next hen;
He asks her
