Go with speed,
And what thy stores contain bring forth and pour
Abundance, fit to honour and receive
Our heavenly stranger.
He
Beholding shall confess, that here on Earth
God has dispensed his bounties as in Heaven....
What choice to choose for delicacy best,
What order so contrived as not to mix
Tastes not well join'd, inelegant, but bring
Taste after taste upheld with kindliest change?
.... For drink the grape
She crushes, inoffensive must, and meaths
From many a berry, and from sweet kernels press'd
She tempers dulcet creams.
Adam.... walks forth, without more train
Accompanied than with his own complete
Perfection, in himself was all his state....
No fear lest dinner cool....
So down they sat,
And to their viands fell; not seemingly
The Angel, nor in mist, the common glose
Of theologians, but with keen dispatch
Of real hunger, and concoctive heat
To transsubstantiate. What redounds transpires
Through spirits, with ease....
So spake our Sire, and by his countenance seem'd
Entering on studious thought abstruse; which Eve
Perceiving, where she sat retired in sight,
With lowliness majestic from her seat,
And grace that won who saw to wish her stay,
Rose, and went forth among her fruits and flowers....
Her nursery....
Her husband the relater she preferr'd....
«But apt the mind or fancy is to rove
Unchecked, and of her roving is no end,
Till warn'd or by experience taught, she learn
That, not to know at large of things remote
From us, obscure and subtle, but to know
That which before us lies in daily life,
Is the prime wisdom. What is more is fume,
Or emptiness, or fond impertinence,
And renders us, in things that most concern,
Unpractised, unprepared, and still to seek.»