No More Learning

_ Nay, beloved!
We must not pluck death from the Maker's hand,
As erst we plucked the apple: we must wait
Until he gives death as he gave us life,
Nor murmur faintly o'er the primal gift
Because we spoilt its sweetness with our sin.

_Eve. _ Ah, ah! dost thou discern what I behold?

_Adam. _ I see all. How the spirits in thine eyes
From their dilated orbits bound before
To meet the spectral Dread!

_Eve. _ I am afraid--
Ah, ah! the twilight bristles wild with shapes
Of intermittent motion, aspect vague
And mystic bearings, which o'ercreep the earth,
Keeping slow time with horrors in the blood.
How near they reach . . . and far!
How grey they move--
Treading upon the darkness without feet,
And fluttering on the darkness without wings!
Some run like dogs, with noses to the ground;
Some keep one path, like sheep; some rock like trees;
Some glide like a fallen leaf, and some flow on
Copious as rivers.

_Adam. _ Some spring up like fire;
And some coil . . .

_Eve. _ Ah, ah! dost thou pause to say
Like what? --coil like the serpent, when he fell
From all the emerald splendour of his height
And writhed, and could not climb against the curse,
Not a ring's length. I am afraid--afraid--
I think it is God's will to make me afraid,--
Permitting THESE to haunt us in the place
Of his beloved angels--gone from us
Because we are not pure. Dear Pity of God,
That didst permit the angels to go home
And live no more with us who are not pure,
Save _us_ too from a loathly company--
Almost as loathly in our eyes, perhaps,
As _we_ are in the purest! Pity us--
Us too! nor shut us in the dark, away
From verity and from stability,
Or what we name such through the precedence
Of earth's adjusted uses,--leave us not
To doubt betwixt our senses and our souls,
Which are the more distraught and full of pain
And weak of apprehension!

_Adam. _ Courage, Sweet!