Yet no low room, nor then the greatest, less If, as devout and sharp men fitly guess, That cross, our joy and grief, (where nails did tie That All, which always was all everywhere, Which could not sin, and yet all sins did bear, Which could not die, yet could not choose but die,) Stood in the self-same room in Calvary Where first grew the forbidden learned tree; For on that tree hung in security This Soul, made by the Maker's will from pulling free. IX. Prince of the orchard, fair as dawning morn, Fenced with the law, and ripe as soon as born, That apple grew which this soul did enlive, Till the then climbing serpent, that now creeps For that offence for which all mankind weeps, Took it, and t' her, whom the first man did wive, (Whom and her race only forbiddings drive,) He gave it, she to her husband; both did eat: So perished the eaters and the meat, And we, for treason taints the blood, thence die and sweat. X. Man all at once was there by woman slain, And one by one we're here slain o'er again By them. The mother poison'd the well-head; The daughters here corrupt us rivulets; No smallness 'scapes, no greatness breaks, their nets: She thrust us out, and by them we are led Astray from turning to whence we are fled. Were prisoners judges 't would seem rigorous; She sinned, we bear: part of our pain is thus To love them whose fault to this painful love yoked us. XI. So fast in us doth this corruption grow, That now we dare ask why we should be so. Would God (disputes the curious rebel) make A law, and would not have it kept? or can His creatures' will cross his? Of every man For one will God (and be just) vengeance take? Who sinned? 'twas not forbidden to the snake, Nor her, who was not then made; nor is 't writ That Adam cropt or knew the apple; yet The worm, and she, and he, and we, endure for it. XII. But snatch me, heavenly Spirit! from this vain Reck'ning their vanity; less is their gain Than hazard still to meditate on ill, Though with good mind; their reasons like those toys Of glassy bubbles which the gamesome boys Stretch to so nice a thinness through a quill, That they themselves break, and do themselves spill. Arguing is heretics' game, and exercise, As wrestlers, perfects them. Not liberties Of speech, but silence; hands, not tongues, and heresies. XIII. Just in that instant, when the serpent's gripe Broke the slight veins and tender conduit-pipe Through which this Soul from the tree's root did draw Life and growth to this apple, fled away This loose Soul, old, one and another day. As lightning, which one scarce dare say he saw, 'Tis so soon gone (and better proof the law Of sense than faith requires) swiftly she flew To a dark and foggy plot; her her fates threw There through the earth's pores, and in a plant housed her anew. XIV.