Adam to Eve

John Milton (1608–1674)

From “Paradise Lost,” Book IX.

O FAIREST of creation, last and best

Of all God’s works, creature in whom excelled

Whatever can to sight or thought be formed,

Holy, divine, good, amiable, or sweet!

How art thou lost, how on a sudden lost,

Defaced, deflowered, and now to death devote!

Rather, how hast thou yielded to transgress

The strict forbiddance, how to violate

The sacred fruit forbidden! Some cursèd fraud

Of enemy hath beguiled thee, yet unknown,

And me with thee hath ruined, for with thee

Certain my resolution is to die.

How can I live without thee, how forego

Thy sweet converse, and love so dearly joined,

To live again in these wild woods forlorn?

Should God create another Eve, and I

Another rib afford, yet loss of thee

Would never from my heart; no, no, I feel

The link of nature draw me: flesh of flesh,

Bone of my bone thou art, and from thy state

Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.

*****

However, I with thee have fixed my lot,

Certain to undergo like doom; if death

Consort with thee, death is to me as life;

So forcible within my heart I feel

The bond of nature draw me to my own,

My own in thee, for what thou art is mine;

Our state cannot be severed, we are one,

One flesh; to lose thee were to lose myself.