Wednesday, June 24, 2009

The last peaceful evening

From Book IV, lines 596-607, of Paradise Lost, the last peaceful evening in Eden. Satan has tricked the archangel Uriel into leading him to God's new creation, where he spies on Adam and Eve and conceives a cunning plan...

Now came still Evening on, and Twilight gray
Had in her sober livery all things clad;
Silence accompanied; for beast and bird,
They to their grassy couch, these to their nests
Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale;
She all night long her amorous descant sung;
Silence was pleased: Now glowed the firmament
With living sapphires: Hesperus, that led
The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon,
Rising in clouded majesty, at length
Apparent queen unveiled her peerless light,
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.

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