Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE FRUIT OF THE TREE, by EDEN PHILLPOTTS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE FRUIT OF THE TREE, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: The seraphim, beneath their burning blades
Last Line: "I'll teach my little children how to love."


THE seraphim, beneath their burning blades,
Moved in a wave of light; while overhead
Gleamed the pale moon, a ghost behind the tongues
Of all those flaming swords; and rearward crept
The brutes of Paradise—the tiger, ounce,
The leopard and the minions of the night.
Stealthy they stalked, with growls that showed the fang,
While in a broken thread of fiery beads,
Golden and green and ruby, through the dark,
Fierce glowed their eyes behind that angel host.
And now they roared for mingled grief and fear,
Because, before the moving seraphim,
Flung out for ever from the dingles deep
And all those pleasant places of sweet shade
Beside the rivers and beneath the trees,
Two, whom the great cats loved, were driven forth.
Bewildered and disgraced, the primal pair,
Now glimmering with moonlight on their heads
And streaks of flickered gold that splashed along
Their thighs and backs, reflected from the swords,
Together went. Hand clasped in hand they moved
Before the marching angles, till at last
The confines of the only home they knew
Were reached and the soft herbage made an end.
Over their heads the tracery of trees
Ceased, and the naked moon among her stars
Hung in the sky and threw a livid light,
Cold as grey ashes, on the earth beneath.
Starkly the desert struck upon their toes
With harsh and flinty welcome; Eve's right foot,
Set down upon a thistle, cried to her
Of a new grief; she moaned in pain, and he,
Adam, with tenderness bent down to it
And licked the blood that sparkled on her skin
In drops the moonlight robbed of sanguine stain
And turned to bright, black pearls. Thus driven forth
Were they for their transgression, and the guard
Took open order on the fringe of Eden,
Against whose frontier dark the sentinels
Stood silently, lit by their burning swords,
To hold the garden precincts; while between
Each seraph and his neighbour still peeped out
The creatures of the garth and howled farewell
To those white things that had befriended them,
And taught their cubs to play in Paradise.
They crouched and lashed their tails and shook the night
That Eve and Adam to the wilderness
Should pass away without one lynx or pard
To purr beside them. All would have rushed forth
But that the ring of fire struck on their hearts
And sent them snarling back. For there had been
A precious bond, a close and curious link
Twixt Adam and his partner and the brutes—
A harmony of happiness and peace
Now vanished from the earth. But then, indeed,
The first man and his woman stood so near
To all their neighbours, sharing their delights
And moving in that new-made world so nigh
To beast and bird and saurian, that they—
The conscious creatures—knowing little more
Than woodland wisdom shared with all the rest,
Guessed not the gap between. Had ape or sloth
Broke heavenly ordinance and ate the Fruit,
Then had they been the lords of good and ill,
And haply ruled the kingdoms of the earth
With kinder wit than man. Yet it fell out
The creatures in the image of their God
Won the beasts' homage by their shapes upright,
Yet shared their subjects' ignorance. The stag,
The tawny bear, the elephant, the wolf,
The monkey folk and all the greater fowls,
Composed their theme and filled their human minds
With fascination. And betwixt themselves,
When Adam spoke to Eve or she to him,
Their converse was abrupt and cynical,
Untinged by human ruth, or tender care
Each for the other's inner happiness.
And when the shadows lengthened and their God
Walked for awhile between them through the cool
Of dewy evenings in their simple way,
They chattered to Him of the names they gave
Unto the great gier-eagle on the crag,
Or hippo, with his mighty nose asnort
Above the mud of Paradise. And He
Would listen with celestial gravity
And go His way again. The couple lacked
Much food for thought; indeed, they never thought;
For what had they to think about beside
The living present and the daily joy
Of food and drink and sleep, and playtime shared
With lesser things as beautiful as they?
Thus did they live through days not fuller fraught
With care and vision of to-morrow's dawn
Than their companions of the hoof and pad
And claw and shining wing. Their mingled life
Was neither more complete nor beautiful
Than that of the striped tiger and his mate,
Who dwelt together in a porphyry den
A stone's throw from the holt that Adam wove
Of living boughs and green wood broken down
Wherein to sleep by Eve. The very birds—
The warbler and the chaffinch and the wren,
Or the red mouse that loved the seeding grass—
Built snugger homes than they; and they would laugh
And wonder how the little, busy things,
Having no hands, could weave so close and true;
Or how the spider lined her nest with silk
To hold her pearly eggs. And when they slept
They dreamed of good to-morrows and no more,
Such as the children dream.

On that first night
That saw them in the road of penalty,
Their incipient spirits wept some mournful while,
Till the moon sank upon a dreary rim
Of desolation and they watched the stars
Sink to earth's edge and vanish one by one,
Like tears that stole adown night's cheek; and then
They turned to look again where Paradise
Lay in a purple shadow on the east
Under her palms and mountains; while along
Those far-flung boundaries dim sparks of fire
Twinkled to mark the soldier angels stand.
Adam at last, in hollow of a dune,
Whose horrent hair along its crest sprang up
In withered bents, a place of shelter found
Where the night wind came not; and there the man
His limping partner brought, then laid her down
To sleep till day; but it was keen and chill
And, finding that Eve slumbered, Adam came
As close as he well might to warm his blood
And draw a little of her golden mane
About his frozen bosom.

Thus they slept,
Until there broke on earth another day,
Whose light unwitting touched a wondrous sight
More pregnant and more precious to the world
Than Earth until that dayspring hour had known.
For when young Eve awakened, from her eyes
Flashed a new glory, something that till now
Had never trembled in those gentle deeps;
And, with her arms about her dreaming man,
She called to him, and he arose to see
A change in her fair face, the which he read
In light of his own quickening. Her voice
Proclaimed a new evangel from her heart,
And full upon the thin and desert air
Poured in the ear of Adam such sweet words
That he forgot his hunger and his grief
And looked at her, the dew in her bright hair,
As subject on a queen.

"My love!" she cried;
And since the word had never till that dawn
Set the air singing, he forgot all else
And listened open-mouthed. "My own true love,
Dost thou not feel within thy bosom's home
A strange new spirit, born for me and thee?
Dost thou not pant with such a joy that never,
Until this day-break on the wilderness,
Thy soul hath throbbed to feel? In that sharp grief,
While the white seraphim did drive us out,
I felt the first faint thrill that fought the grief,
And when you bent and licked my wounded foot,
Even then there flashed to me a sudden bliss
That ministered the pain!"

"And I," said he,
"If I had felt as now I feel—on fire
With tender adoration for my Eve—
Oh then, I never should have played the coward
And flung the blame on you, my better part,
But taken it myself. The light within,
That burns far brightlier than the eastern sky,
Doth show how mean and vile and base a thing
I did to bleat that thou had'st tempted me;
For now I grow to something greater far,
More wise and more discerning than before
I ate the Fruit of the Tree. O would that I
Had claimed the punishment, as meet I should,
And been cast out and suffered happily
Knowing that thou wert safe in Paradise;
For then had I but laughed at thorns and flint
And the cold night beneath the setting stars,
Knowing my Eve safe in our little lair."
"Man, man!" she answered, "what our lair to me,
And what all Eden and the golden sun,
Without my Adam? What the crystal founts
And aubade of the birds in misty denes?
And what the morning mellowness of fruits,
Or subtle, magic fragrance born by night
From moony blossoms, that obeyed the moon
And oped, all others shutting? Eden's self
Had been this ugly desert spread for Eve
Without thee; but beside thee, close and close,
Near as thy shadow, then these antres vast
And dreary vague of lion-coloured dust
Is paradise enough. For we have won
From that thrice-blessed Fruit a dearer thing
Than all the blossomy paths of Paradise
Knew how to offer. Through the taste of it
We are become above the cherubim,
Who never feel, beneath the rainbow light
That dreams upon their bosoms, this that man
And woman feel when love unveils their eyes."
"We must tell God," said Adam. "When He knows
What hides within the amethystine rind
Of that sweet globe forbidden, then will He
Make haste to eat of it Himself, and so,
Touched by ineffable and sacred love,
Seek us, all naked in the desert sand,
With pity on His awful brow. And then
Us will He soon forgive, for when He eats,
A tender, lambent flame of gentle ruth
Must burn within His everlasting Heart
And crown Him with pure mercy." Thus the man;
And then the woman's voice throbbed cheerfully.
"Him will we tell how this that He denied
Has lifted us above all lesser life
And made us wiser than the seraphim,
Who drove me forth so roughly that they scorched
My shoulder with their swords. But this I know:
If Michael and his winged ones had ate
From that kind fruit, as you and I did eat,
A gentle pity would have taught them sheathe
Their brands and made them weep to do us harm.
For what to them were we but beings twain,
No better than the silly, little apes
That would not come to us from out the wood
Until I tempted them with sugary fruits
And almonds that they loved? But now, but now
Are we above all creatures lifted up
And wedded into one—aye, wedded so
That life for me is Adam, and for him
Nothing but Eve. Let that our Maker hear,
And when He learns what now thou art to me
And I to thee, and what this lifeless dust
And shadeless solitude do seem to me
With thy brown hand in mine, then will He know
That we, His creatures, now have haply found
A dearer and more precious Paradise
Than all the hosts of Heaven yet thought upon.
Him we must tell, that from our wondrous cup
He too shall drink, that He, our God, may know
The blessed taste of mercy."

"I will bid
The seraphim to pray to Him for mates!"
Cried Adam, in a fervour that all Heaven
Should share the knowledge dazzling. "Yea, our God
Shall cast his hosts in slumber and withdraw
A woman angel from each winged side,
So that they cast away their writhing swords
Far from them and rejoice, as we rejoice,
To share a life with dearer life than theirs."
They spurred each other on. and laughed to think
Of the divine delight when He should hear
Their wondrous rede; and then together turned
Where Paradise, like a low silver cloud,
Fretted the dawn. But now to them there flew
Out of the waxing sky a messenger,
Who bade them keep their faces to the void
And nevermore approach the sinless paths
Their innocent feet had trod before they fell.
"Wisdom hath spoken, and it is decreed"—
With unimpassioned voice the angel spoke—
"That now ye thieves of wisdom through your span
Shall suffer first and bear the dark reward
Of your unnatural sin. And when the years
Have worn and withered you and broke you down,
Since Death hath now dominion over you,
Then shall you pass and turn again to dust
From which the Almighty, in too generous mood,
Did lift you up. Begone—your way lies there!
And know this too, since parents' sin must be
On children visited for evermore,
Ye shall have seed and bring the race of man
Upon this earth to taste the bitter drink
That ye have brewed for every human lip."
"But we have much to tell our God!" cried Eve;
While he, the servant of Omnipotence,
With level tones indifferent, broke to them
That never more their Maker should they see.
Thereon he spread his wings, and in the light
Of the red morning opened, petal-wise,
His gorgeous pinions, like a new-born flower
All opal tinted. So he flew away,
And soon was lost to sight among the clouds
That day had fringed with fire.

A little while
The pair stood very silent; then young Eve,
Mother of all men, from her steadfast eyes
Shaking the tear, that like a diamond hung
One moment on her lashes, smiled and set
Her arms about our primal father's neck.
"Be of good cheer; we have each other still,
My own brave heart!" said she; "and what this Death
Shall prove, concerning which the seraph spake,
We know not and we fear not; for 'tis sure
That Death can never be so strong, or good,
Or radiant and enduring and supreme
As Love, that we have won to light our way
And guide us through all deserts and all griefs.
And since He will not let us speak to Him,
Or tell Him of our treasure, it shall flow
For babes and sucklings. With their mother's milk
I'll teach my little children how to love."





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