Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ON THE FALL OF MAN, by JOHN BYROM


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ON THE FALL OF MAN, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Of man's obedience, while in eden blest
Last Line: Right reason, scripture, and the love divine.
Subject(s): Human Behavior; Mankind; Obedience; Conduct Of Life; Human Nature; Human Race


OF man's obedience, while in Eden blest,
What a mere trifle is here made the test!
An outward action, in itself, defin'd
To be of perfectly indiff'rent kind;
Which, but for God's forbidding threat severe,
It had been superstition to forbear.

A strange account; that neither does, nor can,
Make any part of true religion's plan;
But must expose it to the ridicule
Of scoffers, judging by this crooked rule:
Its friends, defending truth, as they suppose,
Lay themselves open to acuter foes.

To say that action, neither good nor bad,
From which no harm in nature could be had,
Was chang'd, (by positive, commanding will,
Or threat forbidding,) to a deadly ill,
Charges, by consequence the most direct,
On God himself that ill and its effect.

Language had surely come to a poor pass,
Before an author, of distinguish'd class
For shining talents, could endure to make,
In such a matter, such a gross mistake;
Could thus derive death's origin and root,
From Adam's eating of a harmless fruit.
"From Adam's eating?"—Did not God forbid
The taste of it to Adam?—Yes He did—
And was it harmless, must we understand,
To disobey God's positive commands?—
No, by no means; but then the harm, we see,
Came not from God's command, but from the tree.

If He command, the action must be good;
If He forbid, some ill is understood:
The tree, the fruit, had dreadful ills conceal'd,
Not made by his forbidding, but reveal'd;
That our first parents, by a true belief,
Might know enough to shun the fatal grief.

The dire experience of a world of woe,
Forbidding Mercy will'd them not to know;
Told them what ill was in the false desire,
Which their free wills were tempted to admire;
That, of such fruit, the eating was—To die—
Its harmless nature was the tempter's lie.

To urge it now, and to impute the harm
Of death, and evil, to the kind alarm
Of God's command, so justly understood
To will his creatures nothing else but good,
Is, for a Babel fiction, to resign
RIGHT REASON, SCRIPTURE, and the LOVE DIVINE.





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