After Paradise or Legends of Exile :: :: University of Virginia Library

Eve had heard all, but nothing had she seen:
For, ere the Archangel's sword was drawn, dividing
The oneness of Eternity, between
The gates of Eden fraudulently gliding,
Athwart the wilderness the Snake slid near.
And, where beneath the weight of one day's ill
Fallen she lay, into the woman's ear
He whisper'd, “Look not! utter not! lie still!”
Eve heard, and at his bidding still she lay,
Nor look'd, nor utter'd.

In the woman's eyes
Thus linger'd a reflection of what they

Last look'd on ere she closed them—Paradise.
For all the Archangel's weapon shore away
From Man's perception was what lay before
The gaze of Adam when that sword's sharp ray
(Rending his cloven consciousness in twain)
Parted the Present from the Past. But o'er
The loveliness that in their looks had lain
When last on Eden from afar she gazed,
The lids of Eve were fallen ere (for bane
Or blessing) Adam's granted prayer erased
For ever from the records of his brain
Each memory of Paradise.

And there,
In Eve's shut eyes whate'er on earth is left
Of Eden—faint reflections of it, fair
Fallacious phantoms of a bliss bereft
Of all reality—escaped the stroke

That from remembrance all the rest dispell'd.
So Adam in Eve's eyes, when he awoke,
Vague semblances of Paradise beheld;
And that lost gleam of Eden's light that still
Dreamlike and dim in his own being dwelt
Responded to them with a mystic thrill,
Tho' Adam understood not what he felt.

And still Eve's daughters in their looks retain
Those mirror'd mockeries their mother's eyes
Bequeath'd them, tho' the Paradise they feign
Is now a long-forbidden Paradise.
Reveal'd in Woman's gaze Man seems to see
The wisht-for Eden he hath lost. He deems
That Eden still in Woman's self must be,
And he would fain re-enter it. His dreams
Are kindled, by the mystic light that lies
In these sweet looks, to fervid wishfulness;

And, missing what he ne'er hath known, he sighs
For what, itself, is but a sigh—the bliss
Which there he seeks, and there is lost again.

No more, O nevermore, those steps of his,
Whose progress is but a progressive pain,
The Paradise they seek may reach and rove!
Yet still the search is sweet, albeit in vain;
It lasts for ever, and men call it Love.