_Adam._ Nay, my child, About our falls I don’t profess to know. I know I ne’er was innocent as thou; I only know, as you will have it so, Were your descent more lengthy than was mine, It is not that your place is lower now, But that first ’twas higher up than mine; It is, that I being bestial, you divine, We now alike are human beings both. About our fall I won’t profess to know, But know I do, That I was never innocent as thou. Moping again, my love; yes, I dare swear, All the day long while I have been at work, With some religious folly in your head. _Eve._ No, Adam, I am cheerful quite to-day; I vary much, indeed, from hour to hour, But since my baby’s birth I am happier far; And I have done some work as well as you. _Adam._ What is it tho’? for I will take my oath You’ve got some fancy stirring in your brain. _Eve._ Nay, but it vexes me for evermore To find in you no credence to my thought. _Adam._ What is it then you wish me to subscribe to? That we were in a garden put by God, Allowed to eat of all the trees but one. Somehow—I don’t know how—a serpent tempted us, And eat we did, and so were doomed to die; Whereas before we were meant to live for ever. Meantime, turned out—— _Eve._ You do not think then, Adam, We have been disobedient unto God? _Adam._ My child, how should I know, and what do you mean? Your question’s not so simple as it looks; For if you mean that God said this or that— As that ‘You shall not touch those apples there,’ And that we did—why, all that I can say Is, that I can’t conceive the thing to be. But if it were so, I should then believe We had done right—at any rate, no harm. _Eve._ O Adam, I can scarcely think I hear; For if God said to us—God being God— ‘You shall not,’ is not His commandment His? And are not we the creatures He hath made? _Adam._ My child, God does not speak to human minds In that unmeaning arbitrary way. God were not God if so, and good not good. Search in your heart, and if you tell me there You find a genuine voice—no fancy, mind you— Declaring to you this or that is evil, Why, this or that I daresay evil is. Believe me, I will listen to the word; For not by observation of without Cometh the kingdom of the voice of God: It is within us—let us seek it there. _Eve._ Yet I have voices, surely, in my heart. Often you say I heed them over much. _Adam._ God’s voice is of the heart: I do not say All voices, therefore, of the heart are God’s; And to discern the voice amidst the voices Is that hard task, my love, that we are born to.