One morning of the first sad Fall, <br />Poor Adam and his bride <br />Sat in the shade of Eden's wall-- <br />But on the outer side. <br /> <br />She, blushing in her fig-leaf suit <br />For the chaste garb of old; <br />He, sighing o'er his bitter fruit <br />For Eden's drupes of gold. <br /> <br />Behind them, smiling in the morn, <br />Their forfeit garden lay, <br />Before them, wild with rock and thorn, <br />The desert stretched away. <br /> <br />They heard the air above them fanned, <br />A light step on the sward, <br />And lo! they saw before them stand <br />The angel of the Lord! <br /> <br />'Arise,' he said, 'why look behind, <br />When hope is all before, <br />And patient hand and willing mind, <br />Your loss may yet restore? <br /> <br />'I leave with you a spell whose power <br />Can make the desert glad, <br />And call around you fruit and flower <br />As fair as Eden had. <br /> <br />'I clothe your hands with power to lift <br />The curse from off your soil; <br />Your very doom shall seem a gift, <br />Your loss a gain through Toil. <br /> <br />'Go, cheerful as yon humming-bees, <br />To labor as to play.' <br />White glimmering over Eden's trees <br />The angel passed away. <br /> <br />The pilgrims of the world went forth <br />Obedient to the word, <br />And found where'er they tilled the earth <br />A garden of the Lord! <br /> <br />The thorn-tree cast its evil fruit <br />And blushed with plum and pear, <br />And seeded grass and trodden root <br />Grew sweet beneath their care. <br /> <br />We share our primal parents' fate, <br />And, in our turn and day, <br />Look back on Eden's sworded gate <br />As sad and lost as they. <br /> <br />But still for us his native skies <br />The pitying Angel leaves, <br />And leads through Toil to Paradise <br />New Adams and new Eves!<br /><br />John Greenleaf Whittier<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-lay-of-old-time/
