Expire at Eden's door. Treads out some fragrance which ye knew before. Farewell! the flowers of Eden, [There is silence. ADAM and Eve fly on, and never look SCENE. The extremity of the Sword-glare. Adam. Pausing a moment on this outer edge Where the supernal sword-glare cuts in light The dark exterior desert,-hast thou strength, Beloved, to look behind us to the gate? Eve. Have I not strength to look up to thy face? Adam. We need be strong: yon spectacle of cloud Which seals the gate up to the final doom, Is God's seal manifest. There seem to lie A hundred thunders in it, dark and dead; The unmolten lightnings vein it motionless; And, outward from its depth, the self-moved sword Swings slow its awful gnomon of red fire From side to side, in pendulous horror slow, Across the stagnant, ghastly glare thrown flat On the intermediate ground from that to this. The angelic hosts, the archangelic pomps, Thrones, dominations, princedoms, rank on rank, Rising sublimely to the feet of God, On either side and overhead the gate, Show like a glittering and sustainëd smoke Drawn to an apex. That their faces shine Betwixt the solemn clasping of their wings Clasped high to a silver point above their heads, We only guess from hence, and not discern. Eve. Though we were near enough to see them shine, The shadow on thy face were awfuller, To me, at least, -to me than all their light. Adam. What is this, Eve? thou droppest heavily In a heap earthward, and thy body heaves Under the golden floodings of thine hair! Eve. O Adam, Adam! by that name of EveThine Eve, thy life-which suits me little now, Seeing that I now confess myself thy death And thine undoer, as the snake was mine,I do adjure thee, put me straight away, Together with my name. Sweet, punish me! O Love, be just! and, ere we pass beyond The light cast outward by the fiery sword, Into the dark which earth must be to us, Bruise my head with thy foot, -as the curse said My seed shall the first tempter's! strike with curse, As God struck in the garden! and as HE, Being satisfied with justice and with wrath, Did roll His thunder gentler at the close, Thou, peradventure, may'st at last recoil To some soft need of mercy. Strike, my lord! I, also, after tempting, writhe on the ground, And I would feed on ashes from thine hand, As suits me, O my tempted! Adam. My beloved, Mine Eve and life-I have no other name Of first and last sin on a level. What! Shall I who had not virtue to stand straight Among the hills of Eden, here assume To mend the justice of the perfect God, By piling up a curse upon His curse. Against thee-thee Eve. For so, perchance, thy God Might take thee into grace for scorning me; And so, the blessed angels might come down And walk with thee as erst,--I think they would,Because I was not near to make them sad Or soil the rustling of their innocence. Adam. They know me. I am deepest in the guilt, If last in the transgression. Eve. Adam. THOU! If God, Who gave the right and joyaunce of the world Eve. Is it thy voice? Or some saluting angel's calling home My feet into the garden ? Adam. O my God! I, standing here between the glory and dark, Without her use in comfort! Eve. Where is loss? Am I in Eden? can another speak Adam. Because with her, I stand Upright, as far as can be in this fall, Eve. I am renewed. My eyes grow with the light which is in thine; Of any human death; and yet because And leave thee lonely. Adam. Yet thou liest, Eve, Bent heavily on thyself across mine arm, Eve. Ay! and the tears Running, as it might seem, my life from me, They run so fast and warm. Let me lie so, And weep so, as if in a dream or prayer, Unfastening, clasp by clasp, the hard, tight thought Which clipped my heart and showed me evermore Loathed of thy justice as I loathe the snake, And as the pure ones loathe our sin. To-day, All day, beloved, as we fled across This desolating radiance cast by swords Not suns,-my lips prayed soundless to myself, Striking against each other-'O Lord God!' ('Twas so I prayed) 'I ask Thee by my sin, 'And by thy curse, and by thy blameless heavens, 'Make dreadful haste to hide me from thy face 'And from the face of my beloved here 'For whom I am no helpmeet, quick away 'Into the new dark mystery of death! 'I will lie still there, I will make no plaint, 'I will not sigh, nor sob, nor speak a word, 'Nor struggle to come back beneath the sun 'Where peradventure I might sin anew 'Against Thy mercy and his pleasure. Death, 'Oh death, whate'er it be, is good enough 'For such as I am. ----While for Adam here |