Our Author: " Heavenly Stranger, please
to taste These bounties, which our Nourisher, from
whom
All perfet good, unmeasured-out, descends, To us for food and for delight hath caused The Earth to yield: unsavoury food, per- haps, 4i To Spiritual Natures; only this I know, That one Celestial Father gives to all." To whom the Angel: " Therefore, what
he gives (Whose praise be ever sung) to Man, in
part
Spiritual, may of purest Spirits be found No ingrateful food: and food alike those
pure
Intelligential substances require As doth your Rational; and both contain Within them every lower faculty 41
Of sense, whereby they hear, see, smell,
touch, taste,
Tasting concoct, digest, assimilate, And corporeal to incorporeal turn. For know, whatever was created needs To be sustained and fed. Of Elements The grosser feeds the purer: Earth the
Sea; Earth and the Sea feed Air; the Air those
Fires
Ethereal, and, as lowest, first the Moon; Whence in her visage round those spots,
unpurged, 4 '9
Vapours not yet into her substance turned. Nor doth the Moon no nourishment exhale From her moist continent to higher Orbs. The Sun, that light imparts to all, receives From all his alimental recompense In humid exhalations, and at even Sups with the Ocean. Though in Heaven
the trees
Of life ambrosial fruitage bear, and vines Yield nectar though from off the boughs
each morn We brush mellifluous dews and find the
ground Covered with pearly grain yet God hath
here 430
Varied his bounty so with new delights As may compare with Heaven ; and to taste Think not I shall be nice." So down they
sat,
And to their viands fell ; nor seemingly The Angel, nor in mist the common gloss Of theologians but with keen dispatch
��Of real hunger, and concoctive heat To transubstantiate: what redounds trans- pires Through Spirits with ease; nor wonder, if
by fire
Of sooty coal the Empiric Alchimist 44 Can turn, or holds it possible to turn, Metals of drossiest ore to perfet gold, As from the mine. Meanwhile at table
Eve
Ministered naked, and their flowing cups With pleasant liquors crowned. O inno- cence
Deserving Paradise ! If ever, then, Then had the Sons of God excuse to have
been Enamoured at that sight. But in those
hearts
Love unlibidinous reigned, nor jealousy Was understood, the injured lover's hell. 45 Thus when with meats and drinks they
had sufficed,
Not burdened nature, sudden mind arose In Adam not to let the occasion pass, Given him by this great conference, to know Of things above his world, and of their be- ing Who dwell in Heaven, whose excellence he
saw Transcend his own so far, whose radiant
forms, Divine effulgence, whose high power so
far
Exceeded human; and his wary speech 459 Thus to the empyreal minister he framed : " Inhabitant with God, now know I well Thy favour, in this honour done to Man; Under whose lowly roof thou hast voutsaf ed To enter, and these earthly fruits to taste, Food not of Angels, yet accepted so As that more willingly thou couldst not
seem At Heaven's high feasts to have fed: yet
what compare ! "
To whom the winged Hierarch re- plied :
" O Adam, one Almighty is, from whom All things proceed, and up to him return, 47 If not depraved from good, created all Such to perfection ; one first matter all, Indued with various forms, various degrees Of substance, and, in things that live, of
life;
But more refined, more spiritous and pure, As nearer to him placed or nearer tending
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