Lucifer / Light-bearer

ADAM, EVE, CAIN, ABEL, ADAH, ZILLAH, offering a Sacrifice.

Adam. God, the Eternal! Infinite! All-wise!-- Who out of darkness on the deep didst make Light on the waters with a word--All Hail! Jehovah! with returning light--All Hail!

Eve. God! who didst name the day, and separate Morning from night, till then divided never-- Who didst divide the wave from wave, and call Part of thy work the firmament--All Hail!

Abel. God! who didst call the elements into Earth, ocean, air and fire--and with the day And night, and worlds which these illuminate, Or shadow, madest beings to enjoy them, And love both them and thee--All Hail! All Hail!

Adah. God! the Eternal parent of all things! Who didst create these best and beauteous beings, To be beloved, more than all, save thee-- Let me love thee and them:--All Hail! All Hail!

Zillah. Oh, God! who loving, making, blessing all, Yet didst permit the Serpent to creep in, And drive my father forth from Paradise, Keep us from further evil:--Hail! All Hail!

Adam. Son Cain! my first-born--wherefore art thou silent?

Adam. But thou my eldest born? art silent still?

Eve. Alas! The fruit of our forbidden tree begins To fall.

Adam. And we must gather it again. Oh God! why didst thou plant the tree of knowledge?

Cain. And wherefore plucked ye not the tree of life? Ye might have then defied him.

Adam. Oh! my son, Blaspheme not: these are Serpent's words.

Cain. Why not? The snake spoke truth; it was the Tree of Knowledge; It was the Tree of Life: knowledge is good, And Life is good; and how can both be evil?

Eve. My boy! thou speakest as I spoke in sin, Before thy birth: let me not see renewed My misery in thine. I have repented. Let me not see my offspring fall into The snares beyond the walls of Paradise, Which even in Paradise destroyed his parents. Content thee with what is. Had we been so, Thou now hadst been contented.--Oh, my son!

Adam. Our orisons completed, let us hence, Each to his task of toil--not heavy, though Needful: the earth is young, and yields us kindly Her fruits with little labour.

Eve. Cain--my son-- Behold thy father cheerful and resigned-- And do as he doth. [Exeunt ADAM and EVE.

Abel. Why wilt thou wear this gloom upon thy brow, Which can avail thee nothing, save to rouse The Eternal anger?

Adah. My beloved Cain Wilt thou frown even on me?

Cain. No, Adah! no; I fain would be alone a little while. Abel, I'm sick at heart; but it will pass; Precede me, brother--I will follow shortly. And you, too, sisters, tarry not behind; Your gentleness must not be harshly met: I'll follow you anon.

Adah. If not, I will Return to seek you here.

Abel. The peace of God Be on your spirit, brother! [Exeunt ABEL, ZILLAH, and ADAH.

Cain (solus). And this is Life?--Toil! and wherefore should I toil?--because My father could not keep his place in Eden? What had I done in this?--I was unborn: I sought not to be born; nor love the state To which that birth has brought me. Why did he Yield to the Serpent and the woman? or Yielding--why suffer? What was there in this? The tree was planted, and why not for him? If not, why place him near it, where it grew The fairest in the centre? They have but One answer to all questions, "'Twas his will, And he is good." How know I that? Because He is all-powerful, must all-good, too, follow? I judge but by the fruits--and they are bitter-- Which I must feed on for a fault not mine. Whom have we here?--A shape like to the angels Yet of a sterner and a sadder aspect Of spiritual essence: why do I quake? Why should I fear him more than other spirits, Whom I see daily wave their fiery swords Before the gates round which I linger oft, In Twilight's hour, to catch a glimpse of those Gardens which are my just inheritance, Ere the night closes o'er the inhibited walls And the immortal trees which overtop The Cherubim-defended battlements? If I shrink not from these, the fire-armed angels, Why should I quail from him who now approaches? Yet--he seems mightier far than them, nor less Beauteous, and yet not all as beautiful As he hath been, and might be:

sorrow seems Half of his immortality. And is it So? and can aught grieve save Humanity? He cometh.

Cain. And being so, canst thou Leave them, and walk with dust?

Lucifer. I know the thoughts Of dust, and feel for it, and with you.

Lucifer. They are the thoughts of all Worthy of thought;--'tis your immortal part Which speaks within you.

Cain. What immortal part? This has not been revealed: the Tree of Life Was withheld from us by my father's folly, While that of Knowledge, by my mother's haste, Was plucked too soon; and all the fruit is Death!

Lucifer. They have deceived thee; thou shalt live.

Cain. I live, But live to die; and, living, see no thing To make death hateful, save an innate clinging, A loathsome, and yet all invincible Instinct of life, which I abhor, as I Despise myself, yet cannot overcome-- And so I live. Would I had never lived!

Lucifer. Thou livest--and must live for ever. Think not The Earth, which is thine outward cov'ring, is Existence--it will cease--and thou wilt be-- No less than thou art now.

Lucifer. Poor clay! And thou pretendest to be wretched! Thou!

Cain. I am:--and thou, with all thy might, what art thou?

Lucifer. One who aspired to be what made thee, and Would not have made thee what thou art.

Lucifer. I am none: And having failed to be one, would be nought Save what I am. He conquered; let him reign!

Cain. And Heaven's, And all that in them is. So I have heard His Seraphs sing; and so my father saith.

Lucifer. They say--what they must sing and say, on pain Of being that which I am,--and thou art-- Of spirits and of men.

Lucifer. Souls who dare use their immortality-- Souls who dare look the Omnipotent tyrant in His everlasting face, and tell him that His evil is not good! If he has made, As he saith--which I know not, nor believe-- But, if he made us--he cannot unmake: We are immortal!--nay, he'd have us so, That he may torture:--let him! He is great-- But, in his greatness, is no happier than We in our conflict! Goodness would not make Evil; and what else hath he made? But let him Sit on his vast and solitary throne-- Creating worlds, to make eternity Less burthensome to his immense existence And unparticipated solitude; Let him crowd orb on orb: he is alone Indefinite, Indissoluble Tyrant; Could he but crush himself, 'twere the best boon He ever granted: but let him reign on! And multiply himself in misery! Spirits and Men, at least we sympathise-- And, suffering in concert, make our pangs Innumerable, more endurable, By the unbounded sympathy of all With all! But He! so wretched in his height, So restless in his wretchedness, must still Create, and re-create--perhaps he'll make One day a Son unto himself--as he Gave you a father--and if he so doth, Mark me! that Son will be a sacrifice!

Cain. Thou speak'st to me of things which long have swum In visions through my thought: I never could Reconcile what I saw with what I heard. My father and my mother talk to me Of serpents, and of fruits and trees: I see The gates of what they call their Paradise Guarded by fiery-sworded Cherubim, Which shut them out--and me: I feel the weight Of daily toil, and constant thought: I look Around a world where I seem nothing, with Thoughts which arise within me, as if they Could master all things--but I thought alone This misery was mine. My father is Tamed down; my mother has forgot the mind Which made her thirst for knowledge at the risk Of an eternal curse; my brother is A watching shepherd boy, who offers up The firstlings of the flock to him who bids The earth yield nothing to us without sweat;[by] My sister Zillah sings an earlier hymn Than the birds' matins; and my Adah--my Own and beloved--she, too, understands not The mind which overwhelms me: never till Now met I aught to sympathise with me. 'Tis well--I rather would consort with spirits.

Lucifer. And hadst thou not been fit by thine own soul For such companionship, I would not now Have stood before thee as I am: a serpent Had been enough to charm ye, as before.[bz]

Lucifer. I tempt none, Save with the truth: was not the Tree, the Tree Of Knowledge? and was not the Tree of Life Still fruitful? Did I bid her pluck them not? Did I plant things prohibited within The reach of beings innocent, and curious By their own innocence? I would have made ye Gods; and even He who thrust ye forth, so thrust ye Because "ye should not eat the fruits of life, And become gods as we." Were those his words?

Cain. They were, as I have heard from those who heard them, In thunder.

Lucifer. Then who was the Demon? He Who would not let ye live, or he who would Have made ye live for ever, in the joy And power of Knowledge?

Cain. Would they had snatched both The fruits, or neither!

Lucifer. One is yours already, The other may be still.

Lucifer. By being Yourselves, in your resistance. Nothing can Quench the mind, if the mind will be itself And centre of surrounding things--'tis made To sway.

Lucifer. I? Poor clay--what should I tempt them for, or how?

Lucifer. Who Saith that? It is not written so on high: The proud One will not so far falsify, Though man's vast fears and little vanity Would make him cast upon the spiritual nature His own low failing. The snake was the snake-- No more; and yet not less than those he tempted, In nature being earth also--more in wisdom, Since he could overcome them, and foreknew The knowledge fatal to their narrow joys. Think'st thou I'd take the shape of things that die?

Lucifer. He but woke one In those he spake to with his forky tongue. I tell thee that the Serpent was no more Than a mere serpent: ask the Cherubim Who guard the tempting tree. When thousand ages Have rolled o'er your dead ashes, and your seed's, The seed of the then world may thus array Their earliest fault in fable, and attribute To me a shape I scorn, as I scorn all That bows to him, who made things but to bend Before his sullen, sole eternity; But we, who see the truth, must speak it. Thy Fond parents listened to a creeping thing, And fell. For what should spirits tempt them? What Was there to envy in the narrow bounds Of Paradise, that spirits who pervade Space----but I speak to thee of what thou know'st not, With all thy Tree of Knowledge.

Cain. But thou canst not Speak aught of Knowledge which I would not know, And do not thirst to know, and bear a mind To know.

Cain. My father Says he is something dreadful, and my mother Weeps when he's named; and Abel lifts his eyes To Heaven, and Zillah casts hers to the earth, And sighs a prayer; and Adah looks on me, And speaks not.

Cain. Thoughts unspeakable Crowd in my breast to burning, when I hear Of this almighty Death, who is, it seems, Inevitable. Could I wrestle with him? I wrestled with the lion, when a boy, In play, till he ran roaring from my gripe.

Lucifer. It has no shape; but will absorb all things That bear the form of earth-born being.

Cain. Ah! I thought it was a being: who could do Such evil things to beings save a being?

Lucifer. The Maker--Call him Which name thou wilt: he makes but to destroy.

Cain. I knew not that, yet thought it, since I heard Of Death: although I know not what it is-- Yet it seems horrible. I have looked out In the vast desolate night in search of him; And when I saw gigantic shadows in The umbrage of the walls of Eden, chequered By the far-flashing of the Cherubs' swords, I watched for what I thought his coming; for With fear rose longing in my heart to know What 'twas which shook us all--but nothing came. And then I turned my weary eyes from off Our native and forbidden Paradise, Up to the lights above us, in the azure, Which are so beautiful: shall they, too, die?

Lucifer. Perhaps--but long outlive both thine and thee.

Cain. I'm glad of that: I would not have them die-- They are so lovely. What is Death? I fear, I feel, it is a dreadful thing; but what, I cannot compass: 'tis denounced against us, Both them who sinned and sinned not, as an ill-- What ill?

Lucifer. As I know not death, I cannot answer.

Cain. Were I quiet earth, That were no evil: would I ne'er had been Aught else but dust!

Lucifer. That is a grovelling wish, Less than thy father's--for he wished to know!

Cain. But not to live--or wherefore plucked he not The Life-tree?

Cain. Deadly error! Not to snatch first that fruit:--but ere he plucked The knowledge, he was ignorant of Death. Alas! I scarcely now know what it is, And yet I fear it--fear I know not what!

Lucifer. And I, who know all things, fear nothing; see What is true knowledge.

Lucifer. That Thou dost fall down and worship me--thy Lord.

Cain. Thou art not the Lord my father worships.

Lucifer. No;--I have nought in common with him! Nor would: I would be aught above--beneath-- Aught save a sharer or a servant of His power. I dwell apart; but I am great:-- Many there are who worship me, and more Who shall--be thou amongst the first.

Cain. I never As yet have bowed unto my father's God. Although my brother Abel oft implores That I would join with him in sacrifice:-- Why should I bow to thee?

Cain. Have I not said it?--need I say it? Could not thy mighty knowledge teach thee that?

Lucifer. He who bows not to him has bowed to me.

Lucifer. Ne'er the less, Thou art my worshipper; not worshipping Him makes thee mine the same.

Cain. Let me but Be taught the mystery of my being.

Cain. But I must retire To till the earth--for I had promised----

Lucifer. Said'st thou not Thou ne'er hadst bent to him who made thee?

Cain. Yes-- But Abel's earnest prayer has wrought upon me; The offering is more his than mine--and Adah----

Cain. She is my sister, Born on the same day, of the same womb; and She wrung from me, with tears, this promise; and Rather than see her weep, I would, methinks, Bear all--and worship aught.

Adah. My brother, I have come for thee; It is our hour of rest and joy--and we Have less without thee. Thou hast laboured not This morn; but I have done thy task: the fruits Are ripe, and glowing as the light which ripens: Come away.

Adah. I see an angel; We have seen many: will he share our hour Of rest?--he is welcome.

Cain. But he is not like The angels we have seen.

Adah. Are there, then, others? But he is welcome, as they were: they deigned To be our guests--will he?

Adah. Who Art thou that steppest between heart and heart?

Lucifer. Thou errest, Adah!--was not the Tree that Of Knowledge?

Lucifer. And yet that grief is knowledge--so he lied not: And if he did betray you, 'twas with Truth; And Truth in its own essence cannot be But good.

Adah. But all we know of it has gathered Evil on ill; expulsion from our home, And dread, and toil, and sweat, and heaviness; Remorse of that which was--and hope of that Which cometh not. Cain! walk not with this Spirit. Bear with what we have borne, and love me--I Love thee.

Lucifer. No, not yet; It one day will be in your children.

Adah. What! Must not my daughter love her brother Enoch?

Adah. Oh, my God! Shall they not love and bring forth things that love Out of their love? have they not drawn their milk Out of this bosom? was not he, their father, Born of the same sole womb, in the same hour With me? did we not love each other? and In multiplying our being multiply Things which will love each other as we love Them?--And as I love thee, my Cain! go not Forth with this spirit; he is not of ours.

Lucifer. The sin I speak of is not of my making, And cannot be a sin in you--whate'er It seem in those who will replace ye in Mortality.

Adah. What is the sin which is not Sin in itself? Can circumstance make sin Or virtue?--if it doth, we are the slaves Of----

Lucifer. Higher things than ye are slaves: and higher Than them or ye would be so, did they not Prefer an independency of torture To the smooth agonies of adulation, In hymns and harpings, and self-seeking prayers, To that which is omnipotent, because It is omnipotent, and not from love, But terror and self-hope.

Adah. Fiend! tempt me not with beauty; thou art fairer Than was the Serpent, and as false.

Lucifer. As true. Ask Eve, your mother: bears she not the knowledge Of good and evil?

Adah. Oh, my mother! thou Hast plucked a fruit more fatal to thine offspring Than to thyself; thou at the least hast passed Thy youth in Paradise, in innocent And happy intercourse with happy spirits: But we, thy children, ignorant of Eden, Are girt about by demons, who assume The words of God, and tempt us with our own Dissatisfied and curious thoughts--as thou Wert worked on by the snake, in thy most flushed And heedless, harmless wantonness of bliss. I cannot answer this immortal thing Which stands before me; I cannot abhor him; I look upon him with a pleasing fear, And yet I fly not from him: in his eye There is a fastening attraction which Fixes my fluttering eyes on his; my heart Beats quick; he awes me, and yet draws me near, Nearer and nearer:--Cain--Cain--save me from him!

Cain. What dreads my Adah? This is no ill spirit.

Adah. He is not God--nor God's: I have beheld The Cherubs and the Seraphs; he looks not Like them.

Cain. But there are spirits loftier still-- The archangels.

Lucifer. And still loftier than the archangels.

Lucifer. If the blessedness Consists in slavery--no.

Adah. I have heard it said, The Seraphs love most--Cherubim know most-- And this should be a Cherub--since he loves not.

Lucifer. And if the higher knowledge quenches love, What must he be you cannot love when known?[ca] Since the all-knowing Cherubim love least, The Seraphs' love can be but ignorance: That they are not compatible, the doom Of thy fond parents, for their daring, proves. Choose betwixt Love and Knowledge--since there is No other choice: your sire hath chosen already: His worship is but fear.

Cain. For thee, my Adah, I choose not--It was Born with me--but I love nought else.

Cain. Did they love us when they snatched from the Tree That which hath driven us all from Paradise?

Adah. We were not born then--and if we had been, Should we not love them--and our children, Cain?

Cain. My little Enoch! and his lisping sister! Could I but deem them happy, I would half Forget----but it can never be forgotten Through thrice a thousand generations! never Shall men love the remembrance of the man Who sowed the seed of evil and mankind In the same hour! They plucked the tree of science And sin--and, not content with their own sorrow, Begot me--thee--and all the few that are, And all the unnumbered and innumerable Multitudes, millions, myriads, which may be, To inherit agonies accumulated By ages!--and I must be sire of such things! Thy beauty and thy love--my love and joy, The rapturous moment and the placid hour, All we love in our children and each other, But lead them and ourselves through many years Of sin and pain--or few, but still of sorrow, Interchecked with an instant of brief pleasure, To Death--the unknown! Methinks the Tree of Knowledge Hath not fulfilled its promise:--if they sinned, At least they ought to have known all things that are Of knowledge--and the mystery of Death[cb]. What do they know?--that they are miserable. What need of snakes and fruits to teach us that?

Adah. I am not wretched, Cain, and if thou Wert happy----

Cain. Be thou happy, then, alone-- I will have nought to do with happiness, Which humbles me and mine.

Adah. Alone I could not, Nor would be happy; but with those around us I think I could be so, despite of Death, Which, as I know it not, I dread not, though It seems an awful shadow--if I may Judge from what I have heard.

Lucifer. And thou couldst not Alone, thou say'st, be happy?

Adah. Alone! Oh, my God! Who could be happy and alone, or good? To me my solitude seems sin; unless When I think how soon I shall see my brother, His brother, and our children, and our parents.

Lucifer. Yet thy God is alone; and is he happy? Lonely, and good?

Adah. He is not so; he hath The angels and the mortals to make happy, And thus becomes so in diffusing joy. What else can joy be, but the spreading joy?[cc]

Lucifer. Ask of your sire, the exile fresh from Eden; Or of his first-born son: ask your own heart; It is not tranquil.

Lucifer. If I am not, enquire The cause of this all-spreading happiness (Which you proclaim) of the all-great and good Maker of life and living things; it is His secret, and he keeps it. We must bear, And some of us resist--and both in vain, His Seraphs say: but it is worth the trial, Since better may not be without: there is A wisdom in the spirit, which directs To right, as in the dim blue air the eye Of you, young mortals, lights at once upon The star which watches, welcoming the morn.

Adah. It is a beautiful star; I love it for Its beauty.

Lucifer. But the symbols Of the Invisible are the loveliest Of what is visible; and yon bright star Is leader of the host of Heaven.

Adah. Our father Saith that he has beheld the God himself Who made him and our mother.

Adah. No-- Save in my father, who is God's own image; Or in his angels, who are like to thee-- And brighter, yet less beautiful and powerful In seeming: as the silent sunny noon, All light, they look upon us; but thou seem'st Like an ethereal night, where long white clouds Streak the deep purple, and unnumbered stars Spangle the wonderful mysterious vault With things that look as if they would be suns; So beautiful, unnumbered, and endearing, Not dazzling, and yet drawing us to them, They fill my eyes with tears, and so dost thou. Thou seem'st unhappy: do not make us so, And I will weep for thee.

Lucifer. Alas! those tears! Couldst thou but know what oceans will be shed----

Lucifer. The million millions-- The myriad myriads--the all-peopled earth-- The unpeopled earth--and the o'er-peopled Hell, Of which thy bosom is the germ.

Lucifer. To a place Whence he shall come back to thee in an hour; But in that hour see things of many days.

Lucifer. Did not your Maker make Out of old worlds this new one in few days? And cannot I, who aided in this work, Show in an hour what he hath made in many, Or hath destroyed in few?

Adah. Will he, In sooth, return within an hour?

Lucifer. He shall. With us acts are exempt from time, and we Can crowd eternity into an hour, Or stretch an hour into eternity: We breathe not by a mortal measurement-- But that's a mystery. Cain, come on with me.

Lucifer. Aye, woman! he alone Of mortals from that place (the first and last Who shall return, save ONE), shall come back to thee, To make that silent and expectant world As populous as this: at present there Are few inhabitants.

Lucifer. Throughout all space. Where should I dwell? Where are Thy God or Gods--there am I: all things are Divided with me: Life and Death--and Time-- Eternity--and heaven and earth--and that Which is not heaven nor earth, but peopled with Those who once peopled or shall people both-- These are my realms! so that I do divide His, and possess a kingdom which is not His. If I were not that which I have said, Could I stand here? His angels are within Your vision.

Adah. So they were when the fair Serpent Spoke with our mother first.

Lucifer. Cain! thou hast heard. If thou dost long for knowledge, I can satiate That thirst; nor ask thee to partake of fruits Which shall deprive thee of a single good The Conqueror has left thee. Follow me.

Cain. Spirit, I have said it. [Exeunt LUCIFER and CAIN.

Adah (follows exclaiming). Cain! my brother! Cain!

Cain. I tread on air, and sink not--yet I fear To sink.

Lucifer. Have faith in me, and thou shalt be Borne on the air, of which I am the Prince.

Lucifer. Believe--and sink not! doubt--and perish! thus Would run the edict of the other God, Who names me Demon to his angels; they Echo the sound to miserable things, Which, knowing nought beyond their shallow senses, Worship the word which strikes their ear, and deem Evil or good what is proclaimed to them In their abasement. I will have none such: Worship or worship not, thou shalt behold The worlds beyond thy little world, nor be Amerced for doubts beyond thy little life, With torture of my dooming. There will come An hour, when, tossed upon some water-drops[cd], A man shall say to a man, "Believe in me, And walk the waters;" and the man shall walk The billows and be safe. I will not say, Believe in me, as a conditional creed To save thee; but fly with me o'er the gulf Of space an equal flight, and I will show What thou dar'st not deny,--the history Of past--and present, and of future worlds.

Cain. Oh God! or Demon! or whate'er thou art, Is yon our earth?

Lucifer. Dost thou not recognise The dust which formed your father?

Cain. Can it be? Yon small blue circle, swinging in far ether[ce], With an inferior circlet purpler it still, Which looks like that which lit our earthly night? Is this our Paradise? Where are its walls, And they who guard them?

Cain. How should I? As we move Like sunbeams onward, it grows small and smaller, And as it waxes little, and then less, Gathers a halo round it, like the light Which shone the roundest of the stars, when I Beheld them from the skirts of Paradise: Methinks they both, as we recede from them, Appear to join the innumerable stars Which are around us; and, as we move on, Increase their myriads.

Lucifer. And if there should be Worlds greater than thine own--inhabited By greater things--and they themselves far more In number than the dust of thy dull earth, Though multiplied to animated atoms, All living--and all doomed to death--and wretched, What wouldst thou think?

Cain. I should be proud of thought Which knew such things.

Lucifer. But if that high thought were Linked to a servile mass of matter--and, Knowing such things, aspiring to such things, And science still beyond them, were chained down To the most gross and petty paltry wants, All foul and fulsome--and the very best Of thine enjoyments a sweet degradation, A most enervating and filthy cheat To lure thee on to the renewal of Fresh souls and bodies, all foredoomed to be As frail, and few so happy----

Cain. Spirit! I Know nought of Death, save as a dreadful thing Of which I have heard my parents speak, as of A hideous heritage I owe to them No less than life--a heritage not happy, If I may judge, till now. But, Spirit! if It be as thou hast said (and I within Feel the prophetic torture of its truth), Here let me die: for to give birth to those Who can but suffer many years, and die-- Methinks is merely propagating Death, And multiplying murder.

Lucifer. Thou canst not All die--there is what must survive.

Cain. The Other Spake not of this unto my father, when He shut him forth from Paradise, with death Written upon his forehead. But at least Let what is mortal of me perish, that I may be in the rest as angels are.

Lucifer. I am angelic: wouldst thou be as I am?

Cain. I know not what thou art: I see thy power, And see thou show'st me things beyond my power, Beyond all power of my born faculties, Although inferior still to my desires And my conceptions.

Lucifer. What are they which dwell So humbly in their pride, as to sojourn With worms in clay?

Cain. And what art thou who dwellest So haughtily in spirit, and canst range Nature and immortality--and yet Seem'st sorrowful?

Lucifer. I seem that which I am; And therefore do I ask of thee, if thou Wouldst be immortal?

Cain. Thou hast said, I must be Immortal in despite of me. I knew not This until lately--but since it must be, Let me, or happy or unhappy, learn To anticipate my immortality.

Lucifer. We and thy sons will try. But now, behold! Is it not glorious?

Cain. Oh thou beautiful And unimaginable ether! and Ye multiplying masses of increased And still-increasing lights! what are ye? what Is this blue wilderness of interminable Air, where ye roll along, as I have seen The leaves along the limpid streams of Eden? Is your course measured for ye? Or do ye Sweep on in your unbounded revelry Through an aerial universe of endless Expansion--at which my soul aches to think-- Intoxicated with eternity? Oh God! Oh Gods! or whatsoe'er ye are! How beautiful ye are! how beautiful Your works, or accidents, or whatsoe'er They may be! Let me die, as atoms die, (If that they die), or know ye in your might And knowledge! My thoughts are not in this hour Unworthy what I see, though my dust is; Spirit! let me expire, or see them nearer.

Lucifer. Art thou not nearer? look back to thine earth!

Cain. Where is it? I see nothing save a mass Of most innumerable lights.

Cain. And wilt thou tell me so? Why, I have seen the fire-flies and fire-worms Sprinkle the dusky groves and the green banks In the dim twilight, brighter than yon world Which bears them.

Lucifer. Thou hast seen both worms and worlds, Each bright and sparkling--what dost think of them?

Cain. That they are beautiful in their own sphere, And that the night, which makes both beautiful, The little shining fire-fly in its flight, And the immortal star in its great course, Must both be guided.

Cain. How know I what I dare behold? As yet, thou hast shown nought I dare not gaze on further.

Lucifer. On, then, with me. Wouldst thou behold things mortal or immortal?

Lucifer. Both partly: but what doth Sit next thy heart?

Cain. The things I have not seen, Nor ever shall--the mysteries of Death.

Lucifer. What, if I show to thee things which have died, As I have shown thee much which cannot die?

Cain. Oh! how we cleave the blue! The stars fade from us! The earth! where is my earth? Let me look on it, For I was made of it.

Lucifer. 'Tis now beyond thee, Less, in the universe, than thou in it; Yet deem not that thou canst escape it; thou Shalt soon return to earth, and all its dust: 'Tis part of thy eternity, and mine.

Lucifer. To what was before thee! The phantasm of the world; of which thy world Is but the wreck.

Lucifer. No more than life is; and that was ere thou Or I were, or the things which seem to us Greater than either: many things will have No end; and some, which would pretend to have Had no beginning, have had one as mean As thou; and mightier things have been extinct To make way for much meaner than we can Surmise; for moments only and the space Have been and must be all unchangeable. But changes make not death, except to clay; But thou art clay--and canst but comprehend That which was clay, and such thou shall behold.

Cain. Clay--Spirit--what thou wilt--I can survey.

Cain. But the lights fade from me fast, And some till now grew larger as we approached, And wore the look of worlds.

Lucifer. Wouldst thou have men without them? must no reptiles Breathe, save the erect ones?

Lucifer. To the world of phantoms, which Are beings past, and shadows still to come.

Cain. But it grows dark, and dark--the stars are gone!

Cain. 'Tis a fearful light! No sun--no moon--no lights innumerable-- The very blue of the empurpled night Fades to a dreary twilight--yet I see Huge dusky masses; but unlike the worlds We were approaching, which, begirt with light, Seemed full of life even when their atmosphere Of light gave way, and showed them taking shapes Unequal, of deep valleys and vast mountains; And some emitting sparks, and some displaying Enormous liquid plains, and some begirt With luminous belts, and floating moons, which took, Like them, the features of fair earth:--instead, All here seems dark and dreadful.

Lucifer. But distinct. Thou seekest to behold Death, and dead things?

Cain. I seek it not; but as I know there are Such, and that my sire's sin makes him and me, And all that we inherit, liable To such, I would behold, at once, what I Must one day see perforce.

Lucifer. And so it shall be ever--but we will Unfold its gates!

Cain. Enormous vapours roll Apart--what's this?

Lucifer. Return! be sure: how else should Death be peopled? Its present realm is thin to what it will be, Through thee and thine.

Cain. The clouds still open wide And wider, and make widening circles round us!

Lucifer. Fear not--without me thou Couldst not have gone beyond thy world. On! on! [They disappear through the clouds.

Cain. How silent and how vast are these dim worlds! For they seem more than one, and yet more peopled Than the huge brilliant luminous orbs which swung So thickly in the upper air, that I Had deemed them rather the bright populace Of some all unimaginable Heaven, Than things to be inhabited themselves,[cg] But that on drawing near them I beheld Their swelling into palpable immensity Of matter, which seemed made for life to dwell on, Rather than life itself. But here, all is So shadowy, and so full of twilight, that It speaks of a day past.

Lucifer. It is the realm Of Death.--Wouldst have it present?

Cain. Till I know That which it really is, I cannot answer. But if it be as I have heard my father Deal out in his long homilies, 'tis a thing-- Oh God! I dare not think on't! Cursed be He who invented Life that leads to Death! Or the dull mass of life, that, being life, Could not retain, but needs must forfeit it-- Even for the innocent!

Cain. Cursed he not me in giving me my birth? Cursed he not me before my birth, in daring To pluck the fruit forbidden?

Lucifer. Thou say'st well: The curse is mutual 'twixt thy sire and thee-- But for thy sons and brother?

Cain. Let them share it With me, their sire and brother! What else is Bequeathed to me? I leave them my inheritance! Oh, ye interminable gloomy realms Of swimming shadows and enormous shapes, Some fully shown, some indistinct, and all Mighty and melancholy--what are ye? Live ye, or have ye lived?

Lucifer. What? Hath not he who made ye Said 'tis another life?

Cain. Till now he hath Said nothing, save that all shall die.

Lucifer. Perhaps He one day will unfold that further secret.

Lucifer. Yes; happy! when unfolded, Through agonies unspeakable, and clogged With agonies eternal, to innumerable Yet unborn myriads of unconscious atoms, All to be animated for this only!

Cain. What are these mighty phantoms which I see Floating around me?--They wear not the form Of the Intelligences I have seen Round our regretted and unentered Eden; Nor wear the form of man as I have viewed it In Adam's and in Abel's, and in mine, Nor in my sister-bride's, nor in my children's: And yet they have an aspect, which, though not Of men nor angels, looks like something, which, If not the last, rose higher than the first, Haughty, and high, and beautiful, and full Of seeming strength, but of inexplicable Shape; for I never saw such. They bear not The wing of Seraph, nor the face of man, Nor form of mightiest brute, nor aught that is Now breathing; mighty yet and beautiful As the most beautiful and mighty which Live, and yet so unlike them, that I scarce Can call them living.

Lucifer. On what thou callest earth They did inhabit.

Lucifer. Of thine, I grant thee--but too mean to be The last of these.

Lucifer. Living, high, Intelligent, good, great, and glorious things, As much superior unto all thy sire Adam could e'er have been in Eden, as The sixty-thousandth generation shall be, In its dull damp degeneracy, to Thee and thy son;--and how weak they are, judge By thy own flesh.

Lucifer. Yes, from their earth, as thou wilt fade from thine.

Cain. But not as now. It is too little and too lowly to Sustain such creatures.

Lucifer. By a most crushing and inexorable Destruction and disorder of the elements, Which struck a world to chaos, as a chaos Subsiding has struck out a world: such things, Though rare in time, are frequent in eternity.-- Pass on, and gaze upon the past.

Lucifer. And true. Behold these phantoms! they were once Material as thou art.

Lucifer. Let He who made thee answer that. I show thee what thy predecessors are, And what they were thou feelest, in degree Inferior as thy petty feelings and Thy pettier portion of the immortal part Of high intelligence and earthly strength. What ye in common have with what they had Is Life, and what ye shall have--Death: the rest Of your poor attributes is such as suits Reptiles engendered out of the subsiding Slime of a mighty universe, crushed into A scarcely-yet shaped planet, peopled with Things whose enjoyment was to be in blindness-- A Paradise of Ignorance, from which Knowledge was barred as poison. But behold What these superior beings are or were; Or, if it irk thee, turn thee back and till The earth, thy task--I'll waft thee there in safety.

Cain. For ever! Since I must one day return here from the earth, I rather would remain; I am sick of all That dust has shown me--let me dwell in shadows.

Lucifer. It cannot be: thou now beholdest as A vision that which is reality. To make thyself fit for this dwelling, thou Must pass through what the things thou seest have passed-- The gates of Death.

Lucifer. By mine! But, plighted to return, My spirit buoys thee up to breathe in regions Where all is breathless save thyself. Gaze on; But do not think to dwell here till thine hour Is come!

Cain. And these, too--can they ne'er repass To earth again?

Lucifer. Their earth is gone for ever-- So changed by its convulsion, they would not Be conscious to a single present spot Of its new scarcely hardened surface--'twas-- Oh, what a beautiful world it was!

Cain. And is! It is not with the earth, though I must till it, I feel at war--but that I may not profit By what it bears of beautiful, untoiling, Nor gratify my thousand swelling thoughts With knowledge, nor allay my thousand fears Of Death and Life.

Lucifer. What thy world is, thou see'st, But canst not comprehend the shadow of That which it was.

Cain. And those enormous creatures, Phantoms inferior in intelligence (At least so seeming) to the things we have passed, Resembling somewhat the wild habitants Of the deep woods of earth, the hugest which Roar nightly in the forest, but ten-fold In magnitude and terror; taller than The cherub-guarded walls of Eden--with Eyes flashing like the fiery swords which fence them-- And tusks projecting like the trees stripped of Their bark and branches--what were they?

Lucifer. That which The Mammoth is in thy world;--but these lie By myriads underneath its surface.

Lucifer. No: for thy frail race to war With them would render the curse on it useless-- 'Twould be destroyed so early.

Lucifer. You have forgotten the denunciation Which drove your race from Eden--war with all things, And death to all things, and disease to most things, And pangs, and bitterness; these were the fruits Of the forbidden tree.

Cain. But animals-- Did they, too, eat of it, that they must die?

Lucifer. Your Maker told ye, they were made for you, As you for him.--You would not have their doom Superior to your own? Had Adam not Fallen, all had stood.

Cain. Alas! the hopeless wretches! They too must share my sire's fate, like his sons; Like them, too, without having shared the apple; Like them, too, without the so dear-bought knowledge! It was a lying tree--for we know nothing. At least it promised knowledge at the price Of death--but knowledge still: but what knows man?

Lucifer. It may be death leads to the highest knowledge; And being of all things the sole thing certain,[ch] At least leads to the surest science: therefore The Tree was true, though deadly.

Cain. These dim realms! I see them, but I know them not.

Lucifer. Because Thy hour is yet afar, and matter cannot Comprehend spirit wholly--but 'tis something To know there are such realms.

Lucifer. Thou knowest that there is A state, and many states beyond thine own-- And this thou knewest not this morn.

Lucifer. Be content; it will Seem clearer to thine immortality.

Cain. And yon immeasurable liquid space Of glorious azure which floats on beyond us, Which looks like water, and which I should deem[ci] The river which flows out of Paradise Past my own dwelling, but that it is bankless And boundless, and of an ethereal hue-- What is it?

Lucifer. There is still some such on earth, Although inferior, and thy children shall Dwell near it--'tis the phantasm of an Ocean.

Cain. 'Tis like another world; a liquid sun-- And those inordinate creatures sporting o'er Its shining surface?

Lucifer. Are its inhabitants, The past Leviathans.

Cain. And yon immense Serpent, which rears his dripping mane and vasty Head, ten times higher than the haughtiest cedar, Forth from the abyss, looking as he could coil Himself around the orbs we lately looked on-- Is he not of the kind which basked beneath The Tree in Eden?

Lucifer. Eve, thy mother, best Can tell what shape of serpent tempted her.

Cain. This seems too terrible. No doubt the other Had more of beauty.

Cain. Many of the same kind (at least so called) But never that precisely, which persuaded The fatal fruit, nor even of the same aspect.

Cain. No: 'twas my mother Who tempted him--she tempted by the serpent.

Lucifer. Good man! whene'er thy wife, or thy sons' wives, Tempt thee or them to aught that's new or strange, Be sure thou seest first who hath tempted them!

Cain. Thy precept comes too late: there is no more For serpents to tempt woman to.

Lucifer. But there Are some things still which woman may tempt man to, And man tempt woman:--let thy sons look to it! My counsel is a kind one; for 'tis even Given chiefly at my own expense; 'tis true, 'Twill not be followed, so there's little lost.

Lucifer. The happier thou!-- Thy world and thou are still too young! Thou thinkest Thyself most wicked and unhappy--is it Not so?

Cain. For crime, I know not; but for pain, I have felt much.

Lucifer. First-born of the first man! Thy present state of sin--and thou art evil, Of sorrow--and thou sufferest, are both Eden In all its innocence compared to what Thou shortly may'st be; and that state again, In its redoubled wretchedness, a Paradise To what thy sons' sons' sons, accumulating In generations like to dust (which they In fact but add to), shall endure and do.-- Now let us back to earth!

Cain. And wherefore didst thou Lead me here only to inform me this?

Cain. Then my father's God did well When he prohibited the fatal Tree.

Lucifer. But had done better in not planting it. But ignorance of evil doth not save From evil; it must still roll on the same, A part of all things.

Cain. Not of all things. No-- I'll not believe it--for I thirst for good.

Lucifer. And who and what doth not? Who covets evil For its own bitter sake?--None--nothing! 'tis The leaven of all life, and lifelessness.

Cain. Within those glorious orbs which we behold, Distant, and dazzling, and innumerable, Ere we came down into this phantom realm, Ill cannot come: they are too beautiful.

Cain. And what of that? Distance can but diminish glory--they, When nearer, must be more ineffable.

Lucifer. Approach the things of earth most beautiful, And judge their beauty near.

Cain. I have done this-- The loveliest thing I know is loveliest nearest.

Lucifer. Then there must be delusion.--What is that Which being nearest to thine eyes is still More beautiful than beauteous things remote?

Cain. My sister Adah.--All the stars of heaven, The deep blue noon of night, lit by an orb Which looks a spirit, or a spirit's world-- The hues of twilight--the Sun's gorgeous coming-- His setting indescribable, which fills My eyes with pleasant tears as I behold Him sink, and feel my heart float softly with him Along that western paradise of clouds-- The forest shade, the green bough, the bird's voice-- The vesper bird's, which seems to sing of love, And mingles with the song of Cherubim, As the day closes over Eden's walls;-- All these are nothing, to my eyes and heart, Like Adah's face: I turn from earth and heaven To gaze on it.