Close to the gates of Paradise I flee;
The night is hot and serpents leave their beds,
And slide along the dark, crooking their heads, ―
My God, my God, open the gates to me!
My eyes are burning so I cannot see;
My feet are bleeding and I suffer pain;
Let me come in on the cool grass again―
My God, my God, open the gates to me!
I ate the fruit of the forbidden tree,
And was cast out into the barren drouth;
And since―the awful taste within my mouth!
My God, my God, open the gates to me!
Am I shut out for all eternity?
I do repent me of my one black sin,
With prayers and tears of blood. . . . Let me come in!
My God, my God, open the gates to me!
Let me come in where birds and flowers be;
Let me once more lie naked in the grass
That trembles when the long wind-ripples pass!
Lord God, Lord God, open the gates to me!
“Eve” as it appears in Higginson’s When the Birds Go North Again (1898).