Poems

Front matter

POEMS

by

ELIZABETH BARRETT BARRETT

Preface

PREFACE.

THE collection here offered to the public, consists of Poems which have been written in the interim between the period of the publication of my "Seraphim" and the present; variously coloured, or perhaps shadowed, by the life of which they are the natural expression,—and, with the exception of a few contributions to English or American periodicals, are printed now for the first time.

As the first poem of this collection, the "Drama of Exile," is the longest and most important work (to me!) which I ever trusted into the current of publication, I may be pardoned for entreating the reader's attention to the fact, that I decided on publishing it after considerable hesitation and doubt. The subject of the Drama rather fastened on me than was chosen; and the form, approaching the model of the Greek tragedy, shaped itself under my hand, rather by force of pleasure than of design. But when the excitement of composition had subsided, I felt afraid of my position. My subject was the new and strange experience of the fallen humanity, as it went forth from Paradise into the wilderness; with a peculiar reference to Eve's allotted grief, which, considering that self-sacrifice belonged to her womanhood, and the consciousness of originating the Fall to her offence,—appeared to me imperfectly apprehended hitherto, and more expressible by a woman than a man. There was room, at least, for lyrical emotion in those first steps into the wilderness,—in that first sense of desolation after wrath,—in that first audible gathering of the recriminating "groan of the whole creation,"—in that first darkening of the hills from the recoiling feet of angels,—and in that first silence of the voice of God. And I took pleasure in driving in, like a pile, stroke upon stroke, the Idea of Exile,—admitting Lucifer as an extreme Adam, to represent the ultimate tendencies of sin and loss,—that it might he strong to bear up the contrary Idea of the Heavenly love and purity. But when all was done, I felt afraid, as I said before, of my position. I had promised my own prudence to shut close the gates of Eden between Milton and myself, so that none might say I dared to walk in his footsteps. He should be within, I thought, with his Adam and Eve unfallen or falling,—and I, without, with my exiles,—I also an exile! It would not do. The subject, and his glory covering it, swept through the gates, and I stood full in it, against my will, and contrary to my vow,—till I shrank back fearing, almost desponding; hesitating to venture even a passing association with our great poet before the face of the public. Whether at last I took courage for the venture, by a sudden revival of that love of manuscript which should be classed by moral philosophers among the natural affections, or by the encouraging voice of a dear friend, it is not interesting to the reader to inquire. Neither could the fact affect the question; since I bear, of course, my own responsibilities. For the rest, Milton is too high, and I am too low, to render it necessary for me to disavow any rash emulation of his divine faculty on his own ground; while enough individuality will be granted, I hope, to my poem, to rescue me from that imputation of plagiarism which should be too servile a thing for every sincere thinker. After all, and at the worst, I have only attempted, in respect to Milton, what the Greek dramatists achieved lawfully in respect to Homer. They constructed dramas on Trojan ground; they raised on the buskin and even clasped with the sock, the feet of Homeric heroes; yet they neither imitated their Homer, nor emasculated him. The Agamemnon of Æschylus, who died in the bath, did no harm to, nor suffered any harm from, the Agamemnon of Homer, who bearded Achilles. To this analogy—the more favourable to me from the obvious exception in it, that Homer's subject was his own possibly by creation,—whereas Milton's was his own by illustration only, —I appeal. To this analogy—not to this comparison, he it understood,—I appeal. For the analogy of the stronger may apply to the weaker; and the reader may have patience with the weakest while she suggests the application.

On a graver point I must take leave to touch, in further reference to my dramatic poem. The divine Saviour is represented in vision towards the close, speaking and transfigured; and it has been hinted to me that the introduction may give offence in quarters where I should be most reluctant to give any. A reproach of the same class, relating to the frequent recurrence of a Great Name in my pages, has already filled me with regret. How shall I answer these things 1 Frankly, in any case. When the old mysteries represented the Holiest Being in a rude familiar fashion, and the people gazed on, with the faith of children in their earnest eyes, the critics of a succeeding age, who rejoiced in Congreve, cried out, "Profane." Yet Andreini's mystery suggested Milton's epic; and Milton, the most reverent of poets, doubting whether to throw his work into the epic form or the dramatic, left, on the latter basis, a rough ground-plan, in which his intention of introducing the "Heavenly Love" among the persons of his drama, is extant to the present day. But the tendency of the present day is to sunder the daily life from the spiritual creed,—to separate the worshipping from the acting man,—and by no means to "live by faith." There is a feeling abroad which appears to me (I say it with deference) nearer to superstition than to religion, that there should be no touching of holy vessels except by consecrated fingers, nor any naming of holy names except in consecrated places. As if life were not a continual sacrament to man, since Christ brake the daily bread of it in His hands! As if the name of God did not build a church, by the very naming of it! As if the word God were not, everywhere in His creation, and at every moment in His eternity, an appropriate word! As if it could be uttered unfitly, if devoutly! I appeal on these points, which I will not argue, from the conventions of the Christian to his devout heart; and I beseech him generously to believe of me, that I have done that in reverence, from which, through reverence, he might have abstained; and that where he might have been driven to silence by the principle of adoration, I, by the very same principle, have been hurried into speech.

It should have been observed in another place,—the fact, however, being sufficiently obvious throughout the drama,—that the time is from the evening into the night. If it should be objected that I have lengthened my twilight too much for the east, I might hasten to answer that we know nothing of the length of mornings or evenings before the Flood, and that I cannot, for my own part, believe in an Eden without the longest of purple twilights. The evening, צרב of Genesis, signifies a "mingling," and approaches the meaning of our "twilight" analytically. Apart from which considerations, my "exiles" are surrounded, in the scene described, by supernatural appearances; and the shadows that approach them, are not only of the night.

The next longest poem to the "Drama of Exile" in the collection, is the "Vision of Poets," in which I have endeavoured to indicate the necessary relations of genius to suffering and self-sacrifice. In the eyes of the living generation, the poet is at once a richer and poorer man than he used to be; he wears better broadcloth, but speaks no more oracles: and the evil of this social incrustation over a great idea, is eating deeper and more fatally into our literature, than either readers or writers may apprehend fully. I have attempted to express in this poem my view of the mission of the poet, of the self-abnegation implied in it, of the great work involved in it, of the duty and glory of what Balzac has beautifully and truly called "la patience angélique du génie;" and of the obvious truth, above all, that if knowledge is power, suffering should be acceptable as a part of knowledge. It is enough to say of the other poems, that scarcely one of them is unambitious of an object and a significance.

Since my "Seraphim" was received by the public with more kindness than its writer had counted on, I dare not rely on having put away the faults with which that volume abounded and was mildly reproached. Something indeed I may hope to have retrieved, because some progress in mind and in art every active thinker and honest writer must consciously or unconsciously make, with the progress of existence and experience: and, in some sort—since "we learn in suffering what we teach in song,"—my songs may he fitter to teach. But if it were not presumptuous language on the lips of one to whom life is more than usually uncertain, my favourite wish for this work would be, that it be received by the public as a step in the right track, towards a future indication of more value and acceptability. I would fain do better,—and I feel as if I might do better: I aspire to do better. It is no new form of the nympholepsy of poetry, that my ideal should fly before me:—and if I cry out too hopefully at sight of the white vesture receding between the cypresses, let me be blamed gently if justly. In any case, while my poems are full of faults,—as I go forward to my critics and confess,—they have my heart and life in them,—they are not empty shells. If it must be said of me that I have contributed immemorable verses to the many rejected by the age, it cannot at least be said that I have done so in a light and irresponsible spirit. Poetry has been as serious a thing to me as life itself; and life has been a very serious thing: there has been no playing at skittles for me in either. I never mistook pleasure for the final cause of poetry; nor leisure, for the hour of the poet. I have done my work, so far, as work,—not as mere hand and head work, apart from the personal being,—but as the completest expression of that being, to which I could attain,—and as work I offer it to the public,—feeling its shortcomings more deeply than any of my readers, because measured from the height of my aspiration,—but feeling also that the reverence and sincerity with which the work was done, should give it some protection with the reverent and sincere.

A Drama of Exile

A DRAMA OF EXILE.

PERSONS OF THE DRAMA.

Adam. Eve. Gabriel. Lucifer.

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Angels. Eden Spirits. Earth Spirits and Phantasms.

Christ in a Vision.

1em

Lucifer. Hail, Gabriel, the keeper of the gate! Now that the fruit is plucked, prince Gabriel, I bold that Eden is impregnable Under thy keeping. Gabriel.Angel of the sin, Such as thou standest,—pale in the drear light Which rounds the rebel's work with Maker's wrath,— Thou shalt be an Idea to all souls;— A monumental melancholy gloom Seen down all ages; whence to mark despair, And measure out the distances from good! Go from us straightway. Lucifer.Wherefore? Gabriel.Lucifer, Thy last step in this place, trod sorrow up. Recoil before that sorrow, if not this sword. Lucifer. Angels are in the world—wherefore not I? Exiles are in the world—wherefore not I? The cursed are in the world—wherefore not I! Gabriel. Depart. Lucifer. And where's the logic of "depart"? Our lady Eye had half been satisfied To obey her Maker, if I had not learnt

To fix my postulate better. Dost thou dream Of guarding some monopoly in Heaven Instead of earth? Why, I can dream with thee To the length of thy wings. Gabriel. I do not dream. This is not Heaven, even in a dream; nor earth, As earth was once,—first breathed among the stars,— Articulate glory from the mouth divine,— To which the myriad spheres thrilled audibly, Touched like a lute-string,—and the sons of God Said Amen, singing it. I know that this Is earth, not new created, but new cursed— This, Eden's gate, not opened, but built up With a final cloud of sunset. Do I dream? Alas, not so! this is the Eden lost By Lucifer the Serpent! this the sword (This sword, alive with justice and with fire!) That smote upon the forehead, Lucifer The angel! Wherefore, angel, go . . . depart— Enough is sinned and suffered. Lucifer.By no means. Here's a brave earth to sin and suffer on! It holds fast still—it cracks not under curse; It holds, like mine immortal. Presently We'll sow it thick enough with graves as green Or greener, certes, than its knowledge-tree— We'll have the cypress for the tree of life, More eminent for shadow—for the rest We'll build it dark with towns and pyramids, And temples, if it please you:—we'll have feasts And funerals also, merrymakes and wars, Till blood and wine shall mix and run along Bight o'er the edges. And good Gabriel, (Ye like that word Heaven!) I too have strength— Strength to behold Him, and not worship Him; Strength to fall from Him, and not cry on Him; Strength to be in the universe, and yet Neither God nor His servant. The red sign

Burnt on my forehead, which you taunt me with, Is God's sign that it bows not unto God; The potter's mark upon his work, to show It rings well to the striker. I and the earth Can hear more curse. Gabriel. O miserable earth, O ruined angel! Lucifer. Well! and if it be, I chose this ruin: I elected it Of my will, not of service. What I do, I do volitient, not obedient, And overtop thy crown with my despair. My sorrow crowns me. Get thee back to Heaven; And leave me to the earth which is mine own In virtue of her misery, as I hers, In virtue of my ruin! turn from both, That bright, impassive, passive angelhood; And spare to read us backward any more Of your spent hallelujahs. Gabriel. Spirit of scorn! I might say, of unreason! I might say, That who despairs, acts; that who acts, connives With God's relations set in time and space; That who elects, assumes a something good Which God made possible; that who lives, obeys The law of a life-maker . . . Lucifer. Let it pass! No more, thou Gabriel! What if I stand up And strike my brow against the crystalline Hoofing the creatures,—shall I say for that, My stature is too high for me to stand,— Henceforward I must sit? Sit thou. Gabriel. I kneel. Lucifer. A heavenly answer. Get thee to thy Heaven, And leave my earth to me. Gabriel. Through Heaven and earth God's will moves freely; and I follow it, As colour follows light. He overflows

The firmamental walls with deity, Therefore with love: His lightnings go abroad, His pity may do so; His angels must, Whene'er He gives them charges. Lucifer. Verily, I and my demons—who are spirits of scorn— Might hold this charge of standing with a sword 'Twixt man and his inheritance, as well As the benignest angel of you all. Gabriel. Thou speakest in the shadow of thy change. If thou hadst gazed upon the face of God This morning for a moment, thou hadst known That only pity fitly can chastise, While hate avengeth. Lucifer. As it is, I know Something of pity. When I reeled in Heaven, And my sword grew too heavy for my wrist, Stabbing through matter, which it could not pierce So much as the first shell of,—toward the throne; When I fell back, down,—staring up as I fell,— The lightnings holding open my scathed lids, And that thought of the infinite of God, Drawn from the finite, speeding my descent; When countless angel-faces, still and stern, Pressed out upon me from the level heavens, Adown the abysmal spaces; and I fell, Trampled down by your stillness, and struck blind By the sight in your eyes;—' twas then I knew How ye could pity, my kind angelhood! Gabriel. Yet, thou discrowned one, by the truth in me Which God keeps in me, I would give away All,—save that truth, and His love over it,— To lead thee home again into the light, And hear thy voice chant with the morning stars; When their rays tremble round them with much song, Sung in more gladness! Lucifer. Sing, my morning star! Last beautiful—last heavenly—that I loved!

If I could drench thy golden locks with tears What were it to this angel? Gabriel. What love is! And now I have named God. Lucifer. Yet, Gabriel, By the lie in me which I keep myself, Thou'rt a false swearer. Were it otherwise, What dost thou here, vouchsafing tender thoughts To that earth-angel or earth-demon—which, Thou and I have not solved his problem yet Enough to argue,—that fallen Adam there,— That red-clay and a breath! who must, forsooth, Live in a new apocalypse of sense, With beauty and music waving in his trees And running in his rivers, to make glad His soul made perfect; if it were not for The hope within thee, deeper than thy truth, Of finally conducting him and his To fill the vacant thrones of me and mine, Which affront Heaven with their vacuity? Gabriel. Angel, there are no vacant thrones in Heaven To suit thy bitter words. Glory and life Fulfil their own depletions: and if God Sighed you far from Him, His next breath drew in A compensative splendour up the skies, Flushing the starry arteries! Lucifer. With a change! So, let the vacant thrones, and gardens too, Fill as may please you!—and be pitiful, As ye translate that word, to the dethroned And exiled, man or angel. The fact stands, That I, the rebel, the cast out and down, Am here, and will not go; while there, along The light to which ye flash the desert out, Flies your adopted Adam! your red clay In two kinds, both being flawed. Why, what is this? Whose work is this? Whose hand was in the work?

Against whose hand? In this last strife, methinks, I am not a fallen angel! Gabriel. Dost thou know Aught of those exiles? Lucifer. Ay: I know they have fled Wordless all day along the wilderness: I know they wear, for burden on their backs, The thought of a shut gate of Paradise, And faces of the marshalled cherubim Shining against, not for them! and I know They dare not look in one another's face, As if each were a cherub! Gabriel. Dost thou know Aught of their future? Lucifer. Only as much as this: That evil will increase and multiply Without a benediction. Gabriel. Nothing more? Lucifer. Why so the angels taunt! What should be more? Gabriel. God is more. Lucifer. Proving what? Gabriel. That He is God, And capable of saving. Lucifer, I charge thee by the solitude He kept Ere He created,—leave the earth to God! Lucifer. My foot is on the earth, firm as my sin! Gabriel. I charge thee by the memory of Heaven Ere any sin was done,—leave earth to God! Lucifer. My sin is on the earth, to reign thereon. Gabriel. I charge thee by the choral song we sang, When up against the white shore of our feet, The depths of the creation swelled and brake,— And the new worlds, the beaded foam and flower Of all that coil, roared outward into space On thunder edges,—leave the earth to God. Lucifer. My woe is on the earth, to curse thereby. Gabriel. I charge thee by that mournful morning star

tpp|start=follow| Which trembleth . . .

Lucifer. Hush! I will not hear thee speak

Of such things. Enough spoken. As the pine In norland forest, drops its weight of snows By a night's growth, so, growing toward my ends, I drop thy counsels. Farewell, Gabriel! Watch out thy service; I assert my will. And peradventure in the after years, When thoughtful men bend slow their spacious brows Upon the storm and strife seen everywhere To ruffle their smooth manhood, and break up With lurid lights of intermittent hope Their human fear and wrong,—they may discern The heart of a lost angel in the earth.

<>CHORUS OF EDEN SPIRITS,

{smaller}(Chanting from Paradise, while Adam and Eve fly across the Sword-glare). >><< Harken, oh harken! let your souls, behind you,

Lean, gently moved!

Our voices feel along the Dread to find you,

O lost, beloved!

Through the thick-shielded and strong-marshalled angels,

They press and pierce:

Our requiems follow fast on our evangels,—

Voice throbs in verse!

We are but orphaned Spirits left in Eden,

A time ago—

God gave us golden cups; and we were bidden

To feed you so!

But now our right hand hath no cup remaining,

No work to do;

The mystic hydromel is spilt, and staining

The whole earth through;

And all those stains lie clearly round for showing

(Not interfused!)

|end=follow

And the cypress did expand, Slow and gradual, branch and head; And the cedar's strong black shade Fluttered brokenly and grand!— Grove and forest bowed aslant In emotion jubilant.

Voice of the same, but softer. Which divine impulsion cleaves In dim movements to the leaves Dropt and lifted, dropt and lifted In the sunlight greenly sifted,— In the sunlight and the moonlight Greenly sifted through the trees. Ever wave the Eden trees In the nightlight, and the noonlight, With a ruffling of green branches Shaded off to resonances; Never stirred by rain or breeze! Fare ye well, farewell! The sylvan sounds, no longer audible, Expire at Eden's door! Each footstep of your treading Treads out some murmur which ye heard before: Farewell! the trees of Eden Ye shall hear nevermore.

River-Spirits. Hark! the flow of the four rivers— Hark the flow! How the silence round you shivers, While our voices through it go, Cold and clear.

A softer voice. Think a little, while ye hear,— Of the banks Where the green palms and red deer Crowd in intermingled ranks,

As if all would drink at once, Where the living water runs! Of the fishes' golden edges Flashing in and out the sedges: Of the swans on silver thrones, Floating down the winding streams, With impassive eyes turned shoreward, And a chant of undertones,— And the lotos leaning forward To help them into dreams. Fare ye well, farewell! The river-sounds, no longer audible, Expire at Eden's door! Each footstep of your treading Treads out some murmur which ye heard before Farewell! the streams of Eden, Ye shall hear nevermore.

Bird-Spirit. I am the nearest nightingale That singeth in Eden after you; And I am singing loud and true, And sweet,—I do not fail! I sit upon a cypress-bough, Close to the gate; and I fling my song Over the gate and through the mail Of the warden angels marshalled strong,— Over the gate and after you! And the warden angels let it pass, Because the poor brown bird, alas! Sings in the garden, sweet and true. And I build my song of high pure notes, Note over note, height over height, Till I strike the arch of the Infinite; And I bridge abysmal agonies With strong, clear calms of harmonies,— And something abides, and something floats, In the song which I sing after you:

Fare ye well, farewell! The creature-sounds, no longer audible, Expire at Eden's door! Each footstep of your treading Treads out some cadence which ye heard before: Farewell! the birds of Eden, Ye shall hear nevermore.

Flower-Spirits. We linger, we linger, The last of the throng! Like the tones of a singer Who loves his own song. We are spirit-aromas Of blossom and bloom; We call your thoughts home, as Ye breathe our perfume; To the amaranth's splendour Afire on the slopes; To the lily-bells tender, And grey heliotropes! To the poppy-plains, keeping Such dream-breath and blé, That the angels there stepping Grew whiter to see! To the nook, set with moly, Ye jested one day in, Till your smile waxed too holy, And left your lips praying! To the rose in the bower-place, That dripped o'er you sleeping; To the asphodel flower place, Ye walked ankle deep in! We pluck at your raiment, We stroke down your hair,— We faint in our lament, And pine into air. Fare ye well, farewell!

The shadow on thy face were awfuller, To me, at least,—than could appear 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 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, may'st at last recoil To some soft need of mercy. Strike, my lord! I, also, after tempting, writhe on 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 blessed 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 the uses of her comforting. Eve. Or is it but a dream of thee, that speaks 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 me, And look up from the earth which doth convict me, 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, Rocking 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 helpmete, 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, Oh death, whate'er it be, is good enough For such as I.—For Adam—there's no voice, Shall ever 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 for 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 slant from Heaven, As tender as a watering dew. Eve. I think That angels—not those guarding Paradise,—