Page:Paradise lost by Milton, John.djvu/300

294 By gift, and thy celestial beauty adore, With ravishment beheld, there best beheld Where universally admired. But here, In this enclosure wild, these beasts among, Beholders rude, and shallow to discern Half what in thee is fair, one man except Who sees thee?—and what is one?—who shouldst be seen A Goddess among Gods, adored and served By Angels numberless, thy daily train." So glozed the Tempter, and his proem tuned: Into the heart of Eve his words made way, Though at the voice much marvelling; at length, Not unamazed, she thus in answer spake:
 * "What may this mean? language of Man pronounced

By tongue of brute, and human sense expressed! The first at least of these I thought denied To beasts, whom God on their creation-day, Created mute to all articulate sound; The latter I demur, for in their looks Much reason, and in their actions, oft appears. Thee, Serpent, subtlest beast of all the field I knew, but not with human voice endued. Redouble then this miracle, and say, How camest thou speakable of mute, and how To me so friendly grown above the rest Of brutal kind, that daily are in sight;