green couch I rose, and far
Passed silent. Know I not the spell that draws
My feet unwilling, Edenward. Its laws
I may not brave to rend my foe. Nor there
The Angel pass, unseen. The night so fair,
As prone among the glistening leaves I lay,
On Adam shone. Not sad, as on a day
Erstwhile he seemed. And I could almost swear
The sound of silvery laughter on the air
Fell soft. And a fleet footfall 'mong the flowers
Scattered the dew. Yet 'mid those silent bowers
Naught else I saw or heard save rippling flow
Of waters, and the moonshine white. Oh, low
Speak, Eblis, lest aloud the night may tell
Thy secret to the stars. Yet it were well
If lies the hidden cure for Lilith's woe
Close shut in Paradise.
"All would we know,
If we, close hid without those verdant walls,
Together watched. What fate soe'er befalls
I care not, if with me she bide."
Down bent
He o'er her hair, thick with the night-dew sprent.
Soft kissed it, crying, "Love, the morn shines bright.
Waken, my Lilith, now. Through lands of night
Our happy course afar doth ever wend;
Past smiling shores where mighty rivers bend,
Past cove and cape and isle, and winding bay
And still blue mists, that hang athwart the day."
Thereat she rose, and joyously they sped
By broad lagoons where musky odors shed
New blooms. About them coiled long wreaths of vine,
And slim lianas drooped, and marish lichens fine.
And fared they on o'er many a slanting beach
And mountain crest; past many an open reach
And forest wild--till over Paradise
They saw the stars, clear, tender, loving, rise.
Then 'neath the screen of those rose-girdled walls
They hid without, listing the waterfalls,
Or bird belated, twittering to its nest.
So still the spot, the very grass to rest
Seemed hushed.
The garden-close, a clinging rose o'ercrept.
Its lustrous stem without that drooping swept
Thick set with buds as tintless as the snows
On sunless hills, when wild the north wind blows.

Lilith a-tiptoe stood; upreaching, caught
The swaying boughs. Her eyes with longing fraught
Close scanned her old deserted home. Then came
Upon her spirit sadness, as if blame
Unuttered breathed through those remembered glades
And touched the odor