Monday, May 2, 2011

Paradise Lost Found Object

Unexampled love,
Translated saints,
Embryos and idiots,
Unpeopled and untrod,
Seemed other worlds
(Or other worlds they seemed):
Potable gold,
Objects distant far,
Chiefly man his chief delight and favor;
While wisdom waits suspicion sleeps at heaven's gate.
Order from disorder flung,
What could be less than to afford him praise
And understood not that a grateful mind by owing owes not
But still pays both owing and discharged?
Evil be thou my good,
Artificer of fraud,
Disfigured more than could befall spirit of happy sort,
As he supposed, all-observed, unseen,
Hairy sides with thicket overgrown grotesque and wild--
Access denied.
Insuperable height of lofty shade,
Goodliest trees,
Odorous sweets,
Fruit of vegetable gold,
Knowledge of good but dear by knowing ill
Gently creeps luxuriant,
A whole day's journey high.
Unadorned golden tresses
Wreathed his lithe proboscis
From his lofty stand on that high tree,
Sole partner and sole part of all these joys.
Let us not think hard this easy prohibition,
When from sleep I first awaked
With unexperienced thought
Less amiably mild than that smooth watery image,
Manly grace and wisdom which alone is truly fair.

No comments: