SCENE 1.—­A Champaign Country.

  ADAM, as newly created, laid on a bed of moss and flowers, by a
  rock.

Adam. What am I? or from whence?  For that I am [Rising.
I know, because I think; but whence I came,
Or how this frame of mine began to be,
What other being can disclose to me? 
I move, I see, I speak, discourse, and know;
Though now I am, I was not always so. 
Then that, from which I was, must be before,
Whom, as my spring of being, I adore. 
How full of ornament is all I view,
In all its parts! and seems as beautiful as new: 
O goodly-ordered work!  O Power Divine,
Of thee I am, and what I am is thine!

  RAPHAEL descends to ADAM, in a cloud.

Raphael. First of mankind, made o’er the world to reign,
Whose fruitful loins an unborn kind contain,
Well hast thou reasoned:  Of himself is none
But that Eternal Infinite and One,
Who never did begin, who ne’er can end;
On Him all beings, as their source, depend. 
We first, who of his image most partake,
Whom he all spirit, immortal, pure, did make;
Man next; whose race, exalted, must supply
The place of those, who, falling, lost the sky.

Adam. Bright minister of heaven, sent here below
To me, who but begin to think and know;
If such could fall from bliss, who knew and saw,
By near admission, their creator’s law,
What hopes have I, from heaven remote so far,
To keep those laws, unknowing when I err?

Raphael. Right reason’s law to every human heart
The Eternal, as his image, will impart: 
This teaches to adore heaven’s Majesty;
In prayer and praise does all devotion lie: 
So doing, thou and all thy race are blest.

Adam. Of every creeping thing, of bird, and beast,
I see the kinds:  In pairs distinct they go;
The males their loves, their lovers females know: 
Thou nam’st a race which must proceed from me,
Yet my whole species in myself I see: 
A barren sex, and single, of no use,
But full of forms which I can ne’er produce.

Raphael. Think not the Power, who made thee thus, can find
No way like theirs to propagate thy kind: 
Meantime, live happy in thyself alone;
Like him who, single, fills the etherial throne. 
To study nature will thy time employ: 
Knowledge and innocence are perfect joy.

Adam. If solitude were best, the All-wise above
Had made no creature for himself to love. 
I add not to the power he had before;
Yet to make me, extends his goodness more. 
He would not be alone, who all things can;
But peopled heaven with angels, earth with man.

Raphael. As man and angels to the Deity,
So all inferior creatures are to thee. 
Heaven’s greatness no society can bear;
Servants he made, and those thou want’st not here.