Paradise Saved
(another version of the Fall)
Adam, indignant, would not eat with Eve, They say, and she was driven from his side. Watching the gates close on her tears, his pride Upheld him, though he could not help but grieve, And climbed the wall, because his loneliness Pined for her lonely figure in the dust: Lo, there were two! God who is more than just Sent her a helpmeet in that wilderness.
Day after day he watched them in the waste Grow old breaking the harsh unfriendly ground, Bearing their children, till at last they died. While Adam, whose fellow God had not replaced, Lived on immortal, young, with virtue crowned, Sterile and impotent and justified.
A. D. Hope (1907-2000)