Internal Man, is but proportion meet;
  I, of brute, human; ye, of human, gods. 
  So ye shall die, perhaps, by putting off
  Human, to put on gods; death to be wished,
  Though threatened, which no worse than this can bring. 
  And what are gods, that man may not become
  As they, participating godlike food? 
  The gods are first, and that advantage use
  On our belief, that all from them proceeds: 
  I question it; for this fair Earth I see,
  Warmed by the Sun, producing every kind;
  Them, nothing:  if they all things, who inclosed
  Knowledge of good and evil in this tree,
  That whoso eats thereof forthwith attains
  Wisdom without their leave? and wherein lies
  The offence, that man should thus attain to know? 
  What can your knowledge hurt him, or this tree
  Impart against his will, if all be his? 
  Or is it envy? and can envy dwell
  In heavenly breasts?—­These, these, and many more
  Causes import your need of this fair fruit. 
  Goddess humane, reach then, and freely taste.”

  THE FALL.

  He ended, and his words replete with guile
  Into her heart too easy entrance won: 
  Fixed on the fruit she gazed, which to behold
  Might tempt alone, and in her ears the sound
  Yet rung of persuasive words, impregned
  With reason, to her seeming, and with truth: 
  Meanwhile the hour of noon drew on, and waked
  An eager appetite, raised by the smell
  So savory of that fruit, which with desire,
  Inclinable now grown to touch or taste,
  Solicited her longing eye; yet first
  Pausing awhile, thus to herself she mused. 
    “Great are thy virtues, doubtless, best of fruits,
  Though kept from man, and worthy to be admired,
  Whose taste, too long forborne, at first assay
  Gave elocution to the mute, and taught
  The tongue not made for speech to speak thy praise: 
  Thy praise he also who forbids thy use
  Conceals not from us, naming thee the Tree
  Of Knowledge, knowledge both of good and evil;
  Forbids us then to taste! but his forbidding
  Commends thee more, while it infers the good
  By thee communicated, and our want: 
  For good unknown sure is not had, or had
  And yet 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 bind not.  But if death
  Bind us with after-bands, what profits then
  Our inward freedom?  In the day we eat
  Of this fair fruit, our doom is, we shall die. 
  How dies the serpent? he hath eaten and lives,
  And knows, and speaks, and reasons, and discerns,
  Irrational till then.  For us alone
  Was death invented? or to us denied
  This intellectual food, for beasts reserved? 
  For beasts it seems:  yet that one beast which first
  Hath tasted envies not, but brings with