So Eden was deserted, and at eve 
Into the quiet place God came to grieve. 
His face was sad, His hands hung slackly down 
Along his robe; too sorrowful to frown 
He paced along the grassy paths and through 
The silent trees, and where the flowers grew 
Tended by Adam. All the birds had gone 
Out to the world, and singing was not one 
To cheer the lonely God out of His grief -- 
The silence broken only when a leaf 
Tapt lightly on a leaf, or when the wind, 
Slow-handed, swayed the bushes to its mind. 

And so along the base of a round hill, 
Rolling in fern, He bent His way until 
He neared the little hut which Adam made, 
And saw its dusky rooftree overlaid 
With greenest leaves. Here Adam and his spouse 
Were wont to nestle in their little house 
Snug at the dew-time: here He, standing sad, 
Sighed with the wind, nor any pleasure had 
In heavenly knowledge, for His darlings twain 
Had gone from Him to learn the feel of pain, 
And what was meant by sorrow and despair, -- 
Drear knowledge for a Father to prepare. 

There he looked sadly on the little place; 
A beehive round it was, without a trace 
Of occupant or owner; standing dim 
Among the gloomy trees it seemed to Him 
A final desolation, the last word 
Wherewith the lips of silence had been stirred. 
Chaste and remote, so tiny and so shy, 
So new withal, so lost to any eye, 
So pac't of memories all innocent 
Of days and nights that in it had been spent 
In blithe communion, Adam, Eve, and He, 
Afar from Heaven and its gaudery; 
And now no more! He still must be the God 
But not the friend; a Father with a rod 
Whose voice was fear, whose countenance a threat, 
Whose coming terror, and whose going wet 
With penitential tears; not evermore 
Would they run forth to meet Him as before 
With careless laughter, striving each to be 
First to His hand and dancing in their glee 
To see Him coming -- they would hide instead 
At His approach, or stand and hang the head, 
Speaking in whispers, and would learn to pray 
Instead of asking, 'Father, if we may.' 

Never again to Eden would He haste 
At cool of evening, when the sun had paced 
Back from the tree-tops, slanting from the rim 
Of a low cloud, what time the twilight dim 
Knit tree to tree in shadow, gathering slow 
Till all had met and vanished in the flow 
Of dusky silence, and a brooding star 
Stared at the growing darkness from afar, 
While haply now and then some nested bird 
Would lift upon the air a sleepy word 
Most musical, or swing its airy bed 
To the high moon that drifted overhead. 

'Twas good to quit at evening His great throne, 
To lay His crown aside, and all alone 
Down through the quiet air to stoop and glide 
Unkenned by angels: silently to hide 
In the green fields, by dappled shades, where brooks 
Through leafy solitudes and quiet nooks 
Flowed far from heavenly majesty and pride, 
From light astounding and the wheeling tide 
Of roaring stars. Thus does it ever seem 
Good to the best to stay aside and dream 
In narrow places, where the hand can feel 
Something beside, and know that it is real. 
His angels! silly creatures who could sing 
And sing again, and delicately fling 
The smoky censer, bow and stand aside 
All mute in adoration: thronging wide, 
Till nowhere could He look but soon He saw 
An angel bending humbly to the law 
Mechanic; knowing nothing more of pain, 
Than when they were forbid to sing again, 
Or swing anew the censer, or bow down 
In humble adoration of His frown. 
This was the thought in Eden as He trod -- 
. . . It is a lonely thing to be a God. 

So long! afar through Time He bent His mind, 
For the beginning, which He could not find, 
Through endless centuries and backwards still 
Endless forever, till His 'stonied will 
Halted in circles, dizzied in the swing 
Of mazy nothingness. -- His mind could bring 
Not to subjection, grip or hold the theme 
Whose wide horizon melted like a dream 
To thinnest edges. Infinite behind 
The piling centuries were trodden blind 
In gulfs chaotic -- so He could not see 
When He was not who always had To Be. 

Not even godly fortitude can stare 
Into Eternity, nor easy bear 
The insolent vacuity of Time: 
It is too much, the mind can never climb 
Up to its meaning, for, without an end, 
Without beginning, plan, or scope, or trend 
To point a path, there nothing is to hold 
And steady surmise: so the mind is rolled 
And swayed and drowned in dull Immensity. 
Eternity outfaces even Me 
With its indifference, and the fruitless year 
Would swing as fruitless were I never there. 

And so for ever, day and night the same, 
Years flying swiftly nowhere, like a game 
Played random by a madm