Expire at Eden's door. Each footstep of your treading Treads out some fragrance which ye knew before. Farewell! the flowers of Eden, Ye shall smell nevermore. [There is silence. ADAM and EVE fly on, and never look back. Only a colossal shadow, as of the dark Angel passing quickly, is cast upon the Sword-glare. 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 Eve- Adam. Of first and last sin on a level. What! Eve. For so, perchance, thy God Might take thee into grace for scorning me; And so, the blessed angels might come down 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 Within life, this best gift between their palms, Eve. Is it thy voice? Or some saluting angel's-calling home O my God! My feet into the garden? Adam. I, standing here between the glory and dark,— That rather Thou hast cast me out with her With angel looks and angel songs around Without her use in comfort! Eve. Where is loss? Am I in Eden? can another speak Mine own love's tongue ? Adam. Because with her, I stand Upright, as far as can be in this fall, And look away from heaven which doth accuse, Eve. I am renewed. My eyes grow with the light which is in thine; Of any human death; and yet because I know this strength of love, I seem to know Lest it pass outwards in astonishment And leave thee lonely. Adam. Yet thou liest, Eve, Bent heavily on thyself across mine arm, Thy face flat to the sky. 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 |