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 look'd out
In the vast desolate night in search of him;
And, when I saw gigantic shadows in
The umbrage of the walls of Eden, chequer'd
By the far-flashing of the cherubs' swords,
I watch'd for what I thought his coming; for
With fear rose longing in my heart to know
What 't was which shook us all-but nothing came.
And then I turn'd 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: 't is denounced against us,
Both them who sinn'd and sinn'd not, as an ill-
What ill?

His equal?

CAIN.

LUCIFER.

No.

As true.

ADAH.

Oh, my mother! thou

Hast pluck'd a fruit more fatal to thine offspring
Than to thyself; thou at the least hast past
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 work'd on by the snake, in thy most flush'd
And heedless, harmless wantonness of bliss.
I cannot answer this immortal thing

Which stands before me: I cannot abhor him;

upon

I look 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!

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 sow'd the seed of evil and mankind

In the same hour! They pluck'd 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 unnumber'd 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,
Intercheck'd with an instant of brief pleasure,
To Death-the unknown! Methinks the tree of know
ledge

Hath not fulfill'd its promise:-if they sinn'd,
At least they ought to have known all things that ar
Of knowledge-and the mystery of death.
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

Will he return?

ADAH.

LUCIFER.

Ay, woman! he alone

Of mortals from that place (the first and last

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

To make that silent and expectant world

As populous as this: at present there

Are few inhabitants.

ADAH.

Where dwellest thou?

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.

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 nougnt oeyond their shallow senses,
Worship the word which strikes their ear, and deem
Evil or good what is proclaim'd 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, toss'd upon some water-drops,
A man shall say to a man, "Believe in me,
And walk the waters ;" and the man shall walk

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 doom'd to death, and wretched, What wouldst thou think?

CAIN.

Which knew such things.

I should be proud of thought

LUCIFER.

But if that high thought were

Link'd to a servile mass of matter, and,
Knowing such things, aspiring to such things,
And science still beyond them, were chain'd 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 foredoom'd 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
Fee! the prophetic torture of its truth),
Here let me die: for to give birth to those