_
Your melancholy looks do pierce me through;
Corruption swathes the paleness of your beauty.
Your melancholy looks do pierce me through;
Corruption swathes the paleness of your beauty.
Elizabeth Browning
I wail in the assault
Of undeserved perdition, sorely wounded!
My nightingale sang sweet without a fault,
My gentle leopards innocently bounded.
_We_ were obedient. What is this convulses
Our blameless life with pangs and fever pulses?
And I wail!
_Eve. _ I choose God's thunder and His angels' swords
To die by, Adam, rather than such words.
Let us pass out and flee.
_Adam. _ We cannot flee.
This zodiac of the creatures' cruelty
Curls round us, like a river cold and drear,
And shuts us in, constraining us to hear.
_First Spirit. _
I feel your steps, O wandering sinners, strike
A sense of death to me, and undug graves!
The heart of earth, once calm, is trembling like
The ragged foam along the ocean-waves:
The restless earthquakes rock against each other;
The elements moan 'round me--"Mother, mother"--
And I wail!
_Second Spirit.
_
Your melancholy looks do pierce me through;
Corruption swathes the paleness of your beauty.
Why have ye done this thing? What did we do
That we should fall from bliss as ye from duty?
Wild shriek the hawks, in waiting for their jesses,
Fierce howl the wolves along the wildernesses--
And I wail!
_Adam. _ To thee, the Spirit of the harmless earth,
To thee, the Spirit of earth's harmless lives,
Inferior creatures but still innocent,
Be salutation from a guilty mouth
Yet worthy of some audience and respect
From you who are not guilty. If we have sinned,
God hath rebuked us, who is over us
To give rebuke or death, and if ye wail
Because of any suffering from our sin,
Ye who are under and not over us,
Be satisfied with God, if not with us,
And pass out from our presence in such peace
As we have left you, to enjoy revenge
Such as the heavens have made you. Verily,
There must be strife between us, large as sin.
_Eve. _ No strife, mine Adam! Let us not stand high
Upon the wrong we did to reach disdain,
Who rather should be humbler evermore
Since self-made sadder. Adam! shall I speak--
I who spake once to such a bitter end--
Shall I speak humbly now who once was proud?
I, schooled by sin to more humility
Than thou hast, O mine Adam, O my king--
_My_ king, if not the world's?
_Adam. _ Speak as thou wilt.
Of undeserved perdition, sorely wounded!
My nightingale sang sweet without a fault,
My gentle leopards innocently bounded.
_We_ were obedient. What is this convulses
Our blameless life with pangs and fever pulses?
And I wail!
_Eve. _ I choose God's thunder and His angels' swords
To die by, Adam, rather than such words.
Let us pass out and flee.
_Adam. _ We cannot flee.
This zodiac of the creatures' cruelty
Curls round us, like a river cold and drear,
And shuts us in, constraining us to hear.
_First Spirit. _
I feel your steps, O wandering sinners, strike
A sense of death to me, and undug graves!
The heart of earth, once calm, is trembling like
The ragged foam along the ocean-waves:
The restless earthquakes rock against each other;
The elements moan 'round me--"Mother, mother"--
And I wail!
_Second Spirit.
_
Your melancholy looks do pierce me through;
Corruption swathes the paleness of your beauty.
Why have ye done this thing? What did we do
That we should fall from bliss as ye from duty?
Wild shriek the hawks, in waiting for their jesses,
Fierce howl the wolves along the wildernesses--
And I wail!
_Adam. _ To thee, the Spirit of the harmless earth,
To thee, the Spirit of earth's harmless lives,
Inferior creatures but still innocent,
Be salutation from a guilty mouth
Yet worthy of some audience and respect
From you who are not guilty. If we have sinned,
God hath rebuked us, who is over us
To give rebuke or death, and if ye wail
Because of any suffering from our sin,
Ye who are under and not over us,
Be satisfied with God, if not with us,
And pass out from our presence in such peace
As we have left you, to enjoy revenge
Such as the heavens have made you. Verily,
There must be strife between us, large as sin.
_Eve. _ No strife, mine Adam! Let us not stand high
Upon the wrong we did to reach disdain,
Who rather should be humbler evermore
Since self-made sadder. Adam! shall I speak--
I who spake once to such a bitter end--
Shall I speak humbly now who once was proud?
I, schooled by sin to more humility
Than thou hast, O mine Adam, O my king--
_My_ king, if not the world's?
_Adam. _ Speak as thou wilt.
