Adam. Pausing a moment on this outer edge...

Adam. Pausing a moment on this outer edge

Where the supernal sword-glare cuts in light

The dark exterior desert,— hast thou strength,

Beloved, to look behind us to the gate?

Eve. Have I not strength to look up to thy face?

Adam. We need be strong: yon spectacle of cloud

Which seals the gate up to the final doom,

Is God's seal manifest. There seem to lie

A hundred thunders in it, dark and dead;

The unmolten lightnings vein it motionless;

And, outward from its depth, the self-moved sword

Swings slow its awful gnomon of red fire

From side to side, in pendulous horror slow,

Across the stagnant ghastly glare thrown flat

On the intermediate ground from that to this.

The angelic hosts, the archangelic pomps,

Thrones, dominations, princedoms, rank on rank,

Rising sublimely to the feet of God,

On either side and overhead the gate,

Show like a glittering and sustained smoke

Drawn to an apex. That their faces shine

Betwixt the solemn clasping of their wings

Clasped high to a silver point above their heads,—

We only guess from hence, and not discern.

Eve. Though we were near enough to see them shine,

The shadow on thy face were awfuller,

To me, at least,— to me — than all their light.

Adam. What is this, Eve? thou droppest heavily

In a heap earthward, and thy body heaves

Under the golden floodings of thine hair!

Eve. O Adam, Adam! by that name of Eve —

Thine Eve, thy life — which suits me little now,

Seeing that I now confess myself thy death

And thine undoer, as the snake was mine,—

I do adjure thee, put me straight away,

Together with my name! Sweet, punish me!

O Love, be just! and, ere we pass beyond

The light cast outward by the fiery sword,

Into the dark which earth must be to us,

Bruise my head with thy foot,— as the curse said

My seed shall the first tempter's! strike with curse,

As God struck in the garden! and as HE,

Being satisfied with justice and with wrath,

Did roll his thunder gentler at the close,—

Thou, peradventure, mayst at last recoil

To some soft need of mercy. Strike, my lord!

I, also, after tempting, writhe on the ground,

And I would feed on ashes from thine hand,

As suits me, O my tempted!

Adam. My beloved,

Mine Eve and life — I have no other name

For thee or for the sun than what ye are,

My utter life and light! If we have fallen,

It is that we have sinned,— we: God is just;

And, since his curse doth comprehend us both,

It must be that his balance holds the weights

Of first and last sin on a level. What!

Shall I who had not virtue to stand straight

Among the hills of Eden, here assume

To mend the justice of the perfect God,

By piling up a curse upon his curse,

Against thee — thee?

Eve. For so, perchance, thy God,

Might take thee into grace for scorning me;

Thy wrath against the sinner giving proof

Of inward abrogation of the sin:

And so, the blessed angels might come down

And walk with thee as erst,— I think they would,—

Because I was not near to make them sad

Or soil the rustling of their innocence.

Adam. They know me. I am deepest in the guilt,

If last in the transgression.

Eve. Thou!

Adam. If God,

Who gave the right and joyaunce of the world

Both unto thee and me,— gave thee to me,

The best gift last, the last sin was the worst,

Which sinned against more complement of gifts

And grace of giving. God! I render back

Strong benediction and perpetual praise

From mortal feeble lips ( as incense-smoke,

Out of a little censer, may fill heaven ),

That thou, in striking my benumbed hands

And forcing them to drop all other boons

Of beauty and dominion and delight,—

Hast left this well-beloved Eve, this life

Within life, this best gift between their palms,

In gracious compensation!

Eve. Is it thy voice?

Or some saluting angel's — calling home

My feet into the garden?

Adam. O my God!

I, standing here between the glory and dark,—

The glory of thy wrath projected forth

From Eden's wall, the dark of our distress

Which settles a step off in that drear world —

Lift up to thee the hands from whence hath fallen

Only creation's sceptre,— thanking thee

That rather thou hast cast me out with her

Than left me lorn of her in Paradise,

With angel looks and angel songs around

To show the absence of her eyes and voice,

And make society full desertness

Without her use in comfort!

Eve. Where is loss?

Am I in Eden? can another speak

Mine own love's tongue?

Adam. Because with her, I stand

Upright, as far as can be in this fall,

And look away from heaven which doth accuse,

And look away from earth which doth convict,

Into her face, and crown my discrowned brow

Out of her love, and put the thought of her

Around me, for an Eden full of birds,

And lift her body up — thus — to my heart,

And with my lips upon her lips,— thus, thus,—

Do quicken and sublimate my mortal breath

Which cannot climb against the grave's steep sides

But overtops this grief.

Eve. I am renewed.

My eyes grow with the light which is in thine;

The silence of my heart is full of sound.

Hold me up — so! Because I comprehend

This human love, I shall not be afraid

Of any human death; and yet because

I know this strength of love, I seem to know

Death's strength by that same sign. Kiss on my lips,

To shut the door close on my rising soul,—

Lest it pass outwards in astonishment

And leave thee lonely!

Adam. Yet thou liest, Eve,

Bent heavily on thyself across mine arm,

Thy face flat to the sky.

Eve. Ay, and the tears

Running, as it might seem, my life from me,

They run so fast and warm. Let me lie so,

And weep so, as if in a dream or prayer,

Unfastening, clasp by clasp, the hard tight thought

Which clipped my heart and showed me evermore

Loathed of thy justice as I loathe the snake,

And as the pure ones loathe our sin. To-day,

All day, beloved, as we fled across

This desolating radiance cast by swords

Not suns,— my lips prayed soundless to myself,

Striking against each other — “O Lord God!”

(‘ Twas so I prayed ) “I ask Thee by my sin,

“And by thy curse, and by thy blameless heavens,

“Make dreadful haste to hide me from thy face

“And from the face of my beloved here

“For whom I am no helpmeet, quick away

“Into the new dark mystery of death!

“I will lie still there, I will make no plaint,

“I will not sigh, nor sob, nor speak a word,

“Nor struggle to come back beneath the sun

“Where peradventure I might sin anew

“Against thy mercy and his pleasure. Death,

“O death, whatever it be, is good enough

“For such as I am: while for Adam here,

“No voice shall say again, in heaven or earth,

“It is not good for him to be alone.”

Adam. And was it good for such a prayer to pass,

My unkind Eve, betwixt our mutual lives?

If I am exiled, must I be bereaved?

Eve.‘ Twas an ill prayer: it shall be prayed no more;

And God did use it like a foolishness,

Giving no answer. Now my heart has grown

Too high and strong for such a foolish prayer,

Love makes it strong and since I was the first

In the transgression, with a steady foot

I will be first to tread from this sword-glare

Into the outer darkness of the waste,—

And thus I do it.

Adam. Thus I follow thee,

As erewhile in the sin.— What sounds! what sounds!

I feel a music which comes straight from heaven,

As tender as a watering dew.

Eve. I think

That angels — not those guarding Paradise,—

But the love-angels, who came erst to us,

And when we said‘ GOD,’ fainted unawares

Back from our mortal presence unto God,

( As if he drew them inward in a breath )

His name being heard of them,— I think that they

With sliding voices lean from heavenly towers,

Invisible but gracious. Hark — how soft!