FORBIDDEN FRUIT
An anonymous poem
- HE world
was finished. On their ceaseless flight
- God sped the jewels which adorn the night;
- Darkness rolled back before the light of day.
- And night shrank blushing from the morning ray.
- The skies were brilliant with a crimson hue,
- Which softly blended with the azure blue;
- Each morn new beauties would the earth unfold,
- Draping the heavens with the tints of gold;
- While through the garden came the perfumed breeze,
- Sweet with fragrance of the budding trees;
- And limpid babbling streams flowed gently by,
- Pure as the fount which crystals in the eye;
- While flowers bloomed with nature's fairest dyes,
- Beneath the purple of the sunny skies.
-
- In pristine vigor man remained alone
- Till woman came to share his leafy throne,
- Fully as fair, but with a softer shade,
- The last and best of all the things God made
- They both from nature in their freshness came,
- But neither knew the blushing tints of shame;
- The flowing tresses only veiled from view
- Those tempting charms that were as rare as new.
-
- They wandered careless through the leafy grove,
- Basking in sunshine and their sinless love,
- Like children playing on a verdant lawn,
- As free from passion as a timid fawn.
- No clouds had yet obscured the brilliant sun;
- The storm and tempest had not yet begun.
- It seemed that nature for itself did grieve
- When Adam knew the first embrace of Eve.
- Passion as yet had never warmed their frames
- Nor stirred their blood with its insidious flames.
- Children in thought, but full of manly life,
- Their sleeping demons knew no heat nor strife.
- Love was a passion hidden in each heart,
- Whose wild desires time would to each impart,
- Love has one object and ulterior goal,
- One blissful moment which deludes the soul,
- When melting nature gently dies away
- And cools the rapture of the heated clay.
- Take lust from love and love would be no more--
- Life has no pleasure but the hopes in store.
- The blushing virgin to the altar led
- Looks fondly forward to the marriage bed;
- Sighs for the moment when a husband's kiss
- Preludes the rapture of a greater bliss;
- Sinks in the pressure of his burning arms,
- And gives unasked her most desirous charms.
- The garden scenes beneath fair Eden's bower
- Are re-enacted every day and hour,
- And every woman in her heart would grieve
- Were there no Adam for each loving Eve.
- This one great lesson from St. Paul we learn
- Better to marry than a virgin burn.
- During the day and oft at eventide,
- They both reposed in slumber, side by side;
- Yet had not dreamed there was a fount within
- Lying in wait to tempt them both to sin--
- If it were sin to give way to the flood
- Of passion lurking dormant in the blood;
- For, all unconscious of those hidden fires,
- They ne'er had yet felt love's sweet, warm desires
- Nor known the joys they ne'er had tasted,
- Nor all the hours they both had wasted.
- Had they but known love's pure and fond delight
- "Forbidden Fruit" were tasted the first night.
- While Eve was lying in fair Eden's bower,
- Herself the fairest and the sweetest flower,
- She sank in slumber near a murmuring stream
- And dreamed a sweet and most delightful dream;
- For, while all shadowed on the grass she lay,
- Her truant soul was roaming far away.
- She thought herself within the groves above,
- Where angels whispered of the sweets of love--
- Thought a man was lying in her blissful arms,
- Who kissed the cherries of her bosom's charms;
- Sought her full lips and kissed an ardent kiss,
- Which woke the rapture of an unborn bliss.
- Her form lay stretched upon the flowing heath,
- While quick and hot came forth the sighing breath,
- An arm was thrown above her golden head,
- One knee was raised from off her rosy bed,
- One hand was toying with the silken hair
- That hid the treasures sweetly buried there;
- Her bosom, whiter than the ocean's foam,
- Rose white as marble in a passion's dome,
- While on each breast in ruby lustre shone
- The red round nipple that surmounts each zone;
- And gently downward, like a floating wave,
- Lay the rich portals of her downy cave,
- Whose full red lips, half hidden in their moss,
- Shone like bright corals in their dewy gloss,
- And her round limbs, like ivory polished bright,
- Whose rosy hues were struggling through the white,
- Lay coiled in beauty as she thus reposed,
- With all her maiden charms at once exposed;
- The fairest thing of all God's work below,
- As fair as marble and as white as snow;
- Man's brightest jewel and God's purest gift
- Lay softly sleeping, but without a shift.
- From such a sight no mortal man could turn
- Who felt the fires of manhood in him burn.
- Priests preach of virtue, but of them beware,
- They would not turn from such a tempting snare.
- First they'd indulge and then perhaps might pray
- That God would humble their rebellious clay.
- Adam beheld her, as in slumber sweet
- Some seraph seemed those rosy lips to meet;
- Hears her soft sighs and sees her bosom swell,
- And felt the blood within his veins rebel;
- For such a sight would daze the purest eyes
- Of angels looking from the skies;
- A sight that man has never yet withstood
- Who felt love's virus stealing through his blood.
- Yet Adam knew not that this vision bright
- Which lay unconscious of his raptured sight
- Was made by nature as his better part,
- The one sweet solace of his troubled heart;
- Knew not the syren in a woman's guise
- Would turn the garden into Paradise--
- Paradise lost--but Paradise but found
- When first he saw Eve sleeping on the ground.
- Night came, all gilded with the sunset's dyes,
- Studded with jewels the mild azure of the skies;
- The moon rose softly on her upward flight,
- The queen of beauty and the gem of night,
- While flowers paled with the departing day
- And closed their petals with the sun's last ray.
- The birds had ceased to sing their evening song,
- Save one, which into night his strains prolong,
- Pouring, in liquid measure, love's soft tale
- Through the soft shadows of the flowery dale,
- Beguiling sleep awhile from languid eyes.
- Like some fair spirit in a worldly guise.
- All living things were sinking to repose,
- Dreading no danger from dark lurking foes;
- For on the fruit man had not yet been fed.
- And Eve, the virgin, had her maidenhead.
- Adam and Eve, at this sweet twilight hour,
- Sought their repose within a rustic bower;
- But ere the sliken gauze of balmy sleep
- Could o'er their drowsy eyelids creep,
- Eve thought her of the dream she'd had again
- And felt its memories stealing through her brain.
- A soft, voluptuous shade stole o'er her eyes,
- The pulse of love within began to rise;
- Her cheeks were burning with a new desire,
- Her veins were boiling with an inward fire,
- Her lips were glowing with a warmth all new,
- Her breast was heaving as the passion grew;
- Each nerve seemed thrilling through her heated frame,
- One blissful thought which ne'er had had a name,
- One blissful wish which she had never known,
- One fond desire that love could be her own.
- Gently an arm o'er Adam's breast she threw,
- While her lips moistened with the gathering dew;
- Her eyes seemed swimming in a sea of pearls,
- As from her breast she brushed the flowing curls,
- And, swelling high, her bosom seemed to flow
- With fire of passion fierce which burned below.
- Love, now unfettered, she could not restrain,
- But felt it surging through each swelling vein,
- Rousing the serpent coiled within her breast
- Whose strong desire had never been repressed.
- To Adam's lips she softly pressed her own,
- While Adam's arms around her form were thrown;
- Yet, even then, he did not dream the bliss
- That Eve awakened by her fervent kiss;
- Knew not the joys that kindred natures feel
- As love's sweet fires through the system steal;
- But each caress that stirred his tranquil blood
- Thrilled through his body with a fiery flood,
- Lighting his face and burning in each vein,
- Until its raptures nothing could restrain.
- His manly bosom heaved with many a sigh,
- While lurid fires flashed from either eye;
- The breath came hot upon his burning lips
- While passion tingled to his finger tips;
- His frame was but a mass of heated clay,
- One strong desire now held unbounded sway;
- And yet he little knew what lay before,
- What mystic pleasure was for him in store.
- But Eve, still trembling with her own desires,
- Added new fuel to her Adam's fires,
- Glued her wet lips to his hot, glowing face
- And held him closely in her warm embrace,
- Distilling passion through her melting sighs
- And rousing demons with her flashing eyes.
- Night looked on calmly, as if nature smiled
- To think that Adam should be thus beguiled.
- The moon now threw a shadow o'er the scene,
- As if she fain their wantonness would screen;
- And e'en the stars half hid their sparkling rays,
- As if they blushed at such a scene to gaze.
- Eve, taught by instinct and inflamed by love,
- Would fain the pleasure of their passion prove;
- Felt that the spot now half consumed by heat
- Was the choice fruit they were forbid to eat;
- And, like all women since that blissful time,
- Was half inclined to perpetrate a crime.
- A crime so sweet that all have followed suit,
- And like it better for its being stolen fruit.
- Adam, meanwhile, had found his manhood's pride,
- And Eve now acted as its faithful guide;
- Gently her hand around its ivory stole
- And turned it quickly toward its natural goal;
- Then, lying prone upon her snowy back,
- Opened before it an untrodden track.
- Ecstatic joy her every nerve did thrill,
- Till heart and thought and even soul stood still.
- Warmer and warmer were her kisses given,
- Until the pleasure seemed to her a heaven.
- And thus she lay in that intense delight
- Which women feel upon their wedding night,
- When heart and soul commingle in a kiss
- And love's fond rapture gives hymeneal bliss.
- But, all too soon, each felt their strength give way
- As love dissolved in passion's heated spray,
- And pouring forth, came then his gushing flood,
- Mixed with crimson of Eve's virgin blood.
- Then Adam sank, half-fainting, on her breast,
- With lingering sighs that could not be repressed.
- His eyes now gleamed not with a fiery glance,
- While o'er his frame there came that blissful trance
- Which poor dissolving nature sweetly feels
- When love enraptured breaks a maiden's seals.
- Blushing and modest, with unconscious grace,
- Eve hid 'neath Adam's arm her glowing face;
- For now that passion had swept o'er her form,
- She lay all quivering from its pleasant storm,
- And only wished her burning cheeks to hide
- The sweet, warm blushes of a new-made bride;
- While in her eyes a humid vapor stole,
- Which for a time seemed clouding o'er her soul,
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