A. D. Hope, for decades the grand old man of Australian poets, was known as the best seventeenth century poet still writing,
in part because his poetry is steeped in conventional English verse, and in part, because he appropriates the mythic and
erotic themes of his predecessors. This paper shows that of Hope's erotic poetry, "Imperial Adam" ranks first, even though the last, disturbing line jolts the reader and the genre. The Old Testament says only that "Adam knew Eve," and
poets as illustrious as John Milton have tried to dilate that laconic report into a comparative literary significance. Milton, a religionist and theological scholar, colored the first human sexual encounter so powerfully that he created a new orthodoxy about it. This paper shows how "Imperial Adam" counters the Miltonic version with unparalleled physicality; angels and theology disappear and Eve discloses shameless ringlets and pubic hair.