No More Learning

"

While the immortal quires chanted their praise, Satan drew near, and
sighted the World--the sun, earth, moon, and companion planets--

As when a scout,
Through dark and desert ways with peril gone
All night, at last by break of cheerful dawn
Obtains the brow of some high-climbing hill,
Which to his eye discovers unaware
The goodly prospect of some foreign land
First seen, or some renowned metropolis
With glistening spires and pinnacles adorned,
Which now the rising Sun gilds with his beams,
Such wonder seized, though after Heaven seen,
The Spirit malign, but much more envy seized,
At sight of all this world beheld so fair.

Flying to the Sun, and taking the form of "a stripling Cherub," Satan
recognises there the Archangel Uriel and accosts him.

"Brightest Seraph, tell
In which of all these shining orbs hath Man
His fixed seat. "

And Uriel, although held to be "the sharpest-sighted Spirit of all in
Heaven," was deceived, for angels cannot discern hypocrisy. So Uriel,
pointing, answers:

"That place is Earth, the seat of Man. . . .
That spot to which I point is Paradise,
Adam's abode; those lofty shades his bower.
Thy way thou canst not miss; me mine requires. "
Thus said, he turned; and Satan, bowing low,
As to superior Spirits is wont in Heaven,
Where honour due and reverence none neglects,
Took leave, and toward the coast of Earth beneath,
Down from the ecliptic, sped with hoped success,
Throws his steep flight in many an aery wheel,
Nor stayed till on Niphantes' top he lights.


_IV. --Of Adam and Eve in Paradise_

Coming within sight of Paradise Satan's conscience is aroused, and he
grieves over the suffering his dire work will entail, exclaiming

"Me miserable; which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell. "

But he cannot brook submission, and hardens his heart afresh.
"So farewell hope, and, with hope, farewell fear,
Farewell remorse! All good to me is lost;
Evil, be thou my Good. "

As he approaches Paradise more closely, the deliciousness of the place
affects even his senses.

As when to them who sail
Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past
Mozambic, off at sea north-east winds blow
Sabean odours from the spicy shore
Of Araby the Blest, with such delay
Well pleased they slack their course, and many a league
Cheered with the grateful smell old Ocean smiles,
So entertained those odorous sweets the Fiend.

At last, after sighting "all kind of living creatures new to sight and
strange," he descries Man.

Two of far nobler shape, erect and tall,
God-like erect, with native honour clad
In naked majesty, seemed lords of all,
And worthy seemed; for in their looks divine
The image of their glorious Maker shone.
For contemplation he and valour formed,
For softness she and sweet attractive grace;
He for God only, she for God in Him.
So hand in hand they passed, the loveliest pair
That ever since in love's embraces met--
Adam the goodliest man of men since born
His sons; the fairest of her daughters Eve.

At the sight of the gentle pair, Satan again almost relents. Taking
the shape of various animals, he approaches to hear them talk and
finds from Adam that the only prohibition laid on them is partaking
of the Tree of Knowledge. Eve, replying, tells how she found herself
alive, saw her form reflected in the water, and thought herself fairer
even than Adam until

"Thy gentle hand
Seized mine; I yielded, and from that time see
How beauty is excelled by manly grace
And wisdom, which alone is truly fair. "

While Satan roams through Paradise, with "sly circumspection," Uriel
descends on an evening sunbeam to warn Gabriel, chief of the angelic
guards, that a suspected Spirit, with looks "alien from Heaven," had
passed to earth, and Gabriel promises to find him before dawn.

Now came still Evening on, and Twilight gray
Had in her sober livery all things clad;
Silence accompanied; for beast and bird,
They to their grassy couch, these to their nests
Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale.
She all night long her amorous descant sung.
Silence was pleased. Now glowed the firmament
With living sapphires; Hesperus, that led
The starry host, rode brightest, till the Moon,
Rising in clouded majesty, at length
Apparent queen, unveiled her peerless light,
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.