Eve. Who would the miseries of man foreknow? 
Not knowing, we but share our part of woe: 
Now, we the fate of future ages bear,
And, ere their birth, behold our dead appear.

Adam. The deaths, thou show’st, are forced and full of strife,
Cast headlong from the precipice of life. 
Is there no smooth descent? no painless way
Of kindly mixing with our native clay?

Raph. There is; but rarely shall that path be trod,
Which, without horror, leads to death’s abode. 
Some few, by temperance taught, approaching slow,
To distant fate by easy journies go: 
Gently they lay them down, as evening sheep
On their own woolly fleeces softly sleep.

Adam. So noiseless would I live, such death to find;
Like timely fruit, not shaken by the wind,
But ripely dropping from the sapless bough,
And, dying, nothing to myself would owe.

Eve. Thus, daily changing, with a duller taste
Of lessening joys, I, by degrees, would waste: 
Still quitting ground, by unperceived decay,
And steal myself from life, and melt away.

Raph. Death you have seen:  Now see your race revive,
How happy they in deathless pleasures live;
Far more than I can show, or you can see,
Shall crown the blest with immortality.

  Here a Heaven descends, full of Angels, and blessed Spirits, with
  soft Music, a Song and Chorus.

Adam. O goodness infinite! whose heavenly will
Can so much good produce from so much ill! 
Happy their state! 
Pure, and unchanged, and needing no defence
From sins, as did my frailer innocence. 
Their joy sincere, and with no sorrow mixt: 
Eternity stands permanent and fixt,
And wheels no longer on the poles of time;
Secure from fate, and more secure from crime.

Eve. Ravished with joy, I can but half repent The sin, which heaven makes happy in the event.

Raph. Thus armed, meet firmly your approaching ill;
For see, the guards, from yon’ far eastern hill,
Already move, nor longer stay afford;
High in the air they wave the flaming sword,
Your signal to depart; now down amain
They drive, and glide, like meteors, through the plain.

Adam. Then farewell all; I will indulgent be
To my own ease, and not look back to see. 
When what we love we ne’er must meet again,
To lose the thought is to remove the pain.

Eve. Farewell, you happy shades! 
Where angels first should practise hymns, and string
Their tuneful harps, when they to heaven would sing. 
Farewell, you flowers, whose buds, with early care,
I watched, and to the chearful sun did rear: 
Who now shall bind your stems? or, when you fall,
With fountain streams your fainting souls recal? 
A long farewell to thee, my nuptial bower,
Adorned with every fair and fragrant flower! 
And last, farewell, farewell my place of birth! 
I go to wander in the lower earth,
As distant as I can; for, dispossest,
Farthest from what I once enjoyed, is best.