Classic Poem

EXTEMPORE LINES SUGGESTED BY DUBUFFE'S PICTURES .

S TRANGER ! wouldst thou be charmed, here stand thee still
And scan that canvas, where the Poet's pen,
The Painter's pencil, and the hues of heaven,
Have made a mimic Paradise. How fair!
How femininely fair that perfect form
Of gentle Eve! — who, leaning on the ground
In sidelong loveliness, bribes Adam's hand
With the rich fruit of the forbidden tree!
That seraph-face, sweet, yearning, full of love,
With passionate appeal upturned to his,
Might almost tempt an angel form to sin,
Though kindred forms stood by. Observe thee, too,
The troubled aspect of our human sire: —
Full of a natural dignity and grace —
Is sad with doubts, perplexities, and fears,
As trembling 'twixt the evil and the good,
He sits in mute uncertainty. " Beware! "
For so our busy fancies seem to say —
Timely beware! nor touch the fatal fruit;
Seal up thine ear against the insidious words
Of her thou lovest, for a pitiless Fiend,
God's enemy and thine, inspires her tongue
With more than mortal eloquence and power.
Gird up thy spirit to resist her plea —
Think on the tenure of thy happy state,
Lest thy infraction of Divine command
Bring sin, tears, ruin, on thy after race! "
Stranger! thy steps depart not, for behold
The great, dread deed at which the infant earth
Shuddered through all her veins; while angels wept
In unavailing pity — hath drawn down
The long and awful curse. Oh! what a change
Hath come upon that Eden, which, but now,
Smiled, the abode of purity and joy,
And peaceful compact 'tween all living things.
The elements are up in warfare; clouds
Hang hot and heavy in the troubled air,
Save where a lurid and mysterious light
Streams through the cloven darkness, and reveals
All other horrors of that fearful scene!
Look on our guilty parents, what dismay
And terror in the wild uplifted look
Of our primeval mother, as she lies
Prone, and encircled by the eager arms
Of him who shares the peril and the pain!
Half kneeling, with a face of strange distress,
Mixed with compassion, wonder, and despair,
He bends above the bringer of his fate,
As if to shield her from the dread effect
Of God's most just displeasure; while the Fiend,
Exulting in the havoc he hath made,
Askant surveys his victims, breathing flame, —
The fire of that interminable hate
Which shut him out eternally from Heaven!
Thus man's conception and designing hand,
With the sweet aid of many-coloured light,
Have boldly given to our admiring eyes
Twin pictures, vivid, truthful, and sublime;
And as we ponder on the solemn theme
Which gave them birth, involuntary thought
Pays silent tribute to the Painter's power!