University of Virginia Library

IV. Vale of Adam

‘Hence was the dust derived, whereof the Sire
Of Heaven, and Earth first moulded flesh of Man;
Then breathed into his nostrils breath of life,
That he became a living soul. Awhile,
Within these wilds he wandered, innocent,
And unrepining; and forsaken not
By him who made him, and, with thoughts divine,
Led to aspire, and warranted to hope;
Till in a cultivated garden set,
To dress it, and to keep it, lord of all.
Then he beheld how lovely Order was,
And how rude Nature put on novel charms,
When unto Law obedient, God's, or man's,
Trained by his will, and nurtured to his use.
But, ah, that blest estate he forfeited;
Living, not Knowing, he preferred to die,
Though by well living he had known all things,
And known all without evil, or delay.
Thence to the ground whence he was taken, Man,
Remanded, was by labour doomed to win
What Love had given, had he not doubted Love:
But that same Love it was, appointed now
Labour to Man; to call the spirit forth
Wherewith had God inspired him; to subdue
Chaotic Nature, and impose what form
His heaven-derived Intelligence decrees,
And so regain the life which he hath lost.
—Thus Man by Wisdom shall dominion use,
To govern, or evade all powers perverse,
Or rebel unto his supremacy,
And substitute them for his force of limb;
And by his knowledge of them, and the might
Which knowledge gives, rise into blest estate
Of leisure, and ability to rear
Moral, and intellectual edifice;
Wherein, as in a temple, he may dwell,
With happiness, as to the present life,
And feel the Eternal, like an altar-flame,
Descending, in a cloud of glory, down
Into his soul, and charming it midway,
To meet it in the air, and guide to God.
—Not that the state of nature is not good,
For He who made it then beheld it so;
But that 'tis chiefly good, because it hath
Capacity of better, which to work
Is, under God, the privilege of man.
Beautiful on this silent wilderness,
Their cataract of light, the moon, and stars
Shed, like a sea; but few the forest paths
That feel their influence, few their shadows know.
Sublime, the sun at noon to burnished gold
Turns, with alchemic touch, the branches high,
That shine into the heaven; which, again,
Shines down on them, reciprocally bright:
But all within is as a dreary cave,
Scarce speckled, even at noon, with Uriël.
Still desolation spreads; bare rocks, and sand;
Nor visit there the seasons. Spring ne'er makes
The crevices of rocks to teem with life;
Nor hath the Summer beauty to bring forth;
Nor Autumn aught to garner: well it were
Might Winter's influence cool its scorching sands,
But they may thirst in vain. The unlaboured earth
Is hidden with the multitude of trees;
The untaught rivers, in no channels kept,
Drown, with perpetual flood, plains fertile else,
And to unhealthy moist convert the dry.
Vain the warm sun, vain climate of the south,
Vain soil prolific, that, with idle growth,
And rank luxuriance, vegetation clothes,
And chokes the wood, and covers blessèd earth
With useless shrubs, and herbs, and noxious weeds—
Unfit for habitance, or nourishment.
To life unfriendly, breathes the stagnant air;
With putrid exhalations water teems;
And earth, encumbered, feels not sun, nor wind.
—Not there the brute gains vigour, though so wild.
And of the wild free denizen, and lord;
Dwarfed in his bulk, nor various in his kind,
Nor numerous, though undestroyed by man:
While the less noble tribes of creeping things
Increase, and multiply, and grow in strength
And size; the active principle of life
Its force expending on inferiour forms,
Offensive, monstrous, poisonous, and strange.
Only the birds, set free by gift of wing
From the controul of earth, howe'er it change,
Preserve their beauty, and their dazzling hue;
Yet with less various note, less pleasing song,
In the too-silent ear of solitude,
No man to listen, they attune their loves.
—Man, elsewhere, taught by Wisdom diligence,
Makes habitable what were desart else;
And with fertility, and beauty clothes,
For use, and ornament, the mended earth:
And, while he works, redeems from fleshly coil
The soul which animates it, and acquits
Some faculty from its imprisonment;
Till his perfection be accomplished quite
In revelation full, and use of all.
And One shall come, who, in the sight of men,
Shall the divinity of perfect man
Illustrate, and identify: and He
The Word, and Will of God shall incarnate,
For Man's atonement, and instruction both.
His soul he shall possess in liberty,
Made free by truth, and purity of life;
And thence of all things shall he knowledge have,
And earth to him, and water shall submit;
And air, and fire acknowledge him divine;
And life, and death await upon his word;
And miracle on his creative will;
Who shall to Man ensample meet bequeath,
What, in the consummation of the age,
Shall crown him Monarch of the Elements.
—Meantime, shall many, though imperfect each,
Each in his several faculty complete,
Like functions of humanity set forth;
So that in all the whole may be expressed,
The want of one by other still supplied,
And that of many sometimes by the one;
But still by each his imperfection felt—
Nay, all—and over land, and ocean wailed;
So loud that heaven, and hell shall hear the moan.
Yet fear ye not; for peace shall come at last.’