John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892). The Poetical Works in Four Volumes. 1892.
Occasional PoemsA Lay of Old Time
O
Poor Adam and his bride
Sat in the shade of Eden’s wall—
But on the outer side.
For the chaste garb of old;
He, sighing o’er his bitter fruit
For Eden’s drupes of gold.
Their forfeit garden lay,
Before them, wild with rock and thorn,
The desert stretched away.
A light step on the sward,
And lo! they saw before them stand
The angel of the Lord!
When hope is all before,
And patient hand and willing mind,
Your loss may yet restore?
Can make the desert glad,
And call around you fruit and flower
As fair as Eden had.
The curse from off your soil;
Your very doom shall seem a gift,
Your loss a gain through Toil.
To labor as to play.”
White glimmering over Eden’s trees
The angel passed away.
Obedient to the word,
And found where’er they tilled the earth
A garden of the Lord!
And blushed with plum and pear,
And seeded grass and trodden root
Grew sweet beneath their care.
And, in our turn and day,
Look back on Eden’s sworded gate
As sad and lost as they.
The pitying Angel leaves,
And leads through Toil to Paradise
New Adams and new Eves!