Thou didst, rebellious Spirit, and thy zeal was vain. Thou spakest in thy blindness. Was it hard for God, Thinkest thou, to choose His graft, to wring from the worst clod His noblest fruiting? Nay. Man's baseness was the test, The text of His all-power, its proof made manifest. There was nought hard for God. SATAN Except to win Man's heart. Lord, hear me to the end. Thy Will found counterpart Only in Man's un-Will. Thy Truth in his un-Truth, Thy Beauty in his Baseness, Ruth in his un-Ruth, Order in his dis-Order. See, Lord, what hath been To Thy fair Earth through him, the fount and origin Of all its temporal woes. How was it ere he came In his high arrogance, sad creature without shame? Thou dost remember, Lord, the glorious World it was, The beauty, the abundance, the unbroken face Of undulent forest spread without or rent or seam From mountain foot to mountain, one embroidered hem Fringing the mighty plains through which Thy rivers strayed, Thy lakes, Thy floods, Thy marshes, tameless, unbetrayed, All virgin of the spoiler, all inviolate, In beauty undeflowered, where fear was not nor hate. Thou knowest, Lord of all, how that sanct solitude Was crowded with brave life, a thousand forms of good Enjoying Thy sweet air, some strong, some weak, yet none Oppressor of the rest more than Thy writ might run. Armed were they, yet restrained. Not even the lion slew His prey in wantonness, nor claimed beyond his due. He thinned their ranks,--yet, lo, the Spring brought back their joy. Short was his anger, Lord. He raged not to destroy. Oh, noble was the World, its balance held by Thee, Timely its fruits for all, 'neath Thy sole sovereignty. But he! he, the unclean! The fault, Lord God, was Thine. Behold him in Thy place, a presence saturnine, In stealth among the rest, equipped as none of these With Thy mind's attributes, low crouched beneath the trees, Betraying all and each. The wit Thou gavest him He useth to undo, to bend them to his whim. His bodily strength is little, slow of foot is he, Of stature base, unclad in mail or panoply. His heart hath a poor courage. He hath beauty none. Bare to the buttocks he of all that might atone. Without Thy favour, Lord, what power had he for ill? Without thy prompting voice his violence had scant skill. The snare, the sling, the lime, who taught him these but Thou? The World was lost through Thee who fashioned him his bow. And Thou hast clean forgot the fair great beasts of yore, The mammoth, aurochs, elk, sea-lion, cave-bear, boar, Which fell before his hand, each one of them than he Nobler and mightier far, undone by treachery. He spared them not, old, young, calf, cow. With pitfall hid In their mid path they fell, by his guile harvested, And with them the World's truth. Henceforth all walked in fear, Knowing that one there was turned traitor, haply near.