Great are thy Vertues, doubtless, best of Fruits. [ 745 ]
Though kept from Man, and worthy to be admird,
Whose taste, too long forborn, at first assay
Gave elocution to the mute, and taught
The To made for Speech to speak thy praise:
Thy praise hee also who forbids thy use, [ 750 ]
ceales not from us, naming thee the Tree
Of Knowledge, knowledge both of good and evil;
Forbids us then to taste, but his forbidding
ends thee more, while it inferrs the good
By thee unicated, and our want: [ 755 ]
Food unknown, sure is not had, or had
A unknown, is as not had at all.
In plain then, what forbids he but to know,
Forbids us good, forbids us to be wise?
Such prohibitions bi. But if Death [ 760 ]
Bind us with after-bands, rofits then
Our inward freedom? In the day we eate
Of this fair Fruit, our doom is, we shall die.
How dies the Serpent? hee hath eatn and lives,
And knows, and speaks, and reasons, and diss, [ 765 ]
Irrational till then. For us alone
Was death ied? or to us denid
This intellectual food, for beasts reservd?
For Beasts it seems: yet that o which first
Hath tasted, envies not, but brings with joy [ 770 ]
The good befalln him, Author unsuspect,
Friendly to man, farr from deceit uile.
What fear I then, rather what know to feare
Uhis ignorance of good and Evil,
Of God or Death, of Law or Penaltie? [ 775 ]
Here grows the Cure of all, this Fruit Divine,
Fair to the Eye, inviting to the Taste,
Of vertue to make wise: what hihen
To reach, and feed at oh Bodie and Mind?
So saying, her rash hand in evil hour [ 780 ]
Forth reag to the Fruit, she pluckd, she eat:
Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat
Sighing through all her Wave signs of woe,
That all was lost. Back to the Thicket slunk
The guiltie Serpent, and well might, for Eve [ 785 ]
I now wholly oaste, naught else
Regarded, such delight till then, as seemd,
In Fruit she asted, whether true
Or fansied so, through expectation high
Of knowledg, nor was God-head from her thought. [ 790 ]