How sweetly did they float upon the wings Of silence through the empty-vaulted night, At every fall smoothing the raven down Of darkness till it smiled!

Our two first parents, yet the only two Of mankind, in the happy garden placed, Reaping immortal fruits of joy and love, Uninterrupted joy, unrivalled love In blissful solitude.

Imparadis'd in one another's arms.

The oracles are dumb, No voice or hideous hum Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. Apollo from his shrine Can no more divine, With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. No nightly trance or breathed spell Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.

Virtue could see to do what virtue would By her own radiant light, though sun and moon Were in the flat sea sunk. And Wisdom's self Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude, Where with her best nurse Contemplation She plumes her feathers and lets grow her wings, That in the various bustle of resort Were all-to ruffled, and sometimes impair'd. He that has light within his own clear breast May sit i' th' centre and enjoy bright day; But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts Benighted walks under the midday sun.

So dear to heav'n is saintly chastity, That when a soul is found sincerely so, A thousand liveried angels lackey her, Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt, And in clear dream and solemn vision Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear, Till oft converse with heav'nly habitants Begin to cast a beam on th' outward shape.

Here the great art lies, to discern in what the law is to be to restraint and punishment, and in what things persuasion only is to work.