—Adam the while,
Waiting desirous her return, had wove
Of choicest Flowers a Garland, to adorn
Her Tresses, and her rural Labours crown:
As Reapers oft are wont their Harvest Queen.
Great Joy he promised to his thoughts, and new
Solace in her return, so long delay'd.
But particularly in that passionate Speech, where seeing her irrecoverably lost, he resolves to perish with her rather than to live without her.
—Some cursed Fraud
Or Enemy hath beguil'd thee, yet unknown,
And me with thee hath ruin'd; for with thee
Certain my Resolution is to die!
How can I live without thee; how forego
Thy sweet Converse and Love so dearly join'd,
To live again in these wild Woods forlorn?
Should God create another Eve, and I
Another Rib afford, yet loss of thee
Would never from my Heart! no, no! I feel
The Link of Nature draw me: Flesh of Flesh,
Bone of my Bone thou art, and from thy State
Mine never shall be parted, Bliss or Woe!
The Beginning of this Speech, and the Preparation to it, are animated with the same Spirit as the Conclusion, which I have here quoted.
The several Wiles which are put in practice by the Tempter, when he found
Eve
separated from her Husband, the many pleasing Images of Nature which are intermix'd in this part of the Story, with its gradual and regular Progress to the fatal Catastrophe, are so very remarkable that it would be superfluous to point out their respective Beauties.
I have avoided mentioning any particular Similitudes in my Remarks on this great Work, because I have given a general Account of them in my Paper on the first Book. There is one, however, in this part of the Poem, which I shall here quote as it is not only very beautiful, but the closest of any in the whole Poem. I mean that where the Serpent is describ'd as rolling forward in all his Pride, animated by the evil Spirit, and conducting
Eve
to her Destruction, while