Oh Eve! Fair mother!
I wish you would have stayed looking at your reflection in the river.
When the angel took you to Adam, you should have listened to your instinct.
“less fair, less winning, less amiably soft” were your first thoughts.[1]
Your own reflection answered better with “sympathy and love”.[2]
What has man given you, and us, but broken bones and shattered hearts?
You say Adam with his gentle hand seized yours to claim when you attempted to leave,[3]
and thus you yielded with your “meek surrender” and “submissive charms” to the “wisdom” of his hands.[4]
What gentleness could be had with such capture?
Mother of all mothers, if only you could have backed up your “no” with strength.
If only we could do that now.

[1] Lines 478-479, Paradise Lost by John Milton
[2] Line 465, Paradise Lost by John Milton
[3] Lines 480-489, Paradise Lost by John Milton
[4] Lines 494, 498, 491, Paradise Lost by John Milton

Excerpt from Persephone Unleashed