Journey to Eden

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Journey to Eden

Oil on gessoed hardboard panel, 12 X 16 inches, 2010

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By thee are given, and what confess more true

Among the Nations? That hath been thy craft,

By mixing somewhat true to vent more lies.

But what have been thy answers, what but dark

Ambiguous and with double sense deluding…

I know he hungers, where no food

Is to be found, in the wide Wilderness…

Then forthwith to him takes a chosen band

Of Spirits like to himself in guile,

To be at hand and at his beck appear,

If cause were to unfold some active scene

Of various persons, each to know his part…

In this wild solitude so long should bide,

Of all things destitute, and, well I know,

Not without hunger. Others of some note,

As story tells, have trod this wilderness…

Into thin Air diffused: for now began

Night with her sullen wing to double-shade

The Desert; Fowls in their clay nests were caught;

And now wild Beasts came forth the woods to roam.

John Milton, selected excerpts from “Paradise Regained”, published in 1671