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?

Lucifer. Was not thy quest for knowledge?

Cain.

Yes-as being 230

If truth be so,

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

Who covets

I'll not believe it-for I thirst for good.
Lucifer. And who and what doth not?

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.
Lucifer. Thou hast seen them from afar.
Cain.

Distance can but diminish glory-they,
When nearer, must be more ineffable.

240

And what of that?

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

Cain.

I have done this- 250

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

260

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.

Lucifer.

"Tis fair as frail mortality,

In the first dawn and bloom of young creation,
And earliest embraces of earth's parents,
Can make its offspring; still it is delusion.

Cain. You think so, being not her brother.
Lucifer.

270

Mortal!

My brotherhood's with those who have no children.
Cain. Then thou canst have no fellowship with us.
Lucifer. It may be that thine own shall be for me.
But if thou dost possess a beautiful

Being beyond all beauty in thine eyes,

Why art thou wretched?

Cain.

Why do I exist?

Why art thou wretched? why are all things so?
Ev'n he who made us must be, as the maker
Of things unhappy! To produce destruction
Can surely never be the task of joy,

And yet my sire says he 's omnipotent:
Then why is Evil-he being Good? I asked
This question of my father; and he said,
Because this Evil only was the path

To Good. Strange Good, that must arise from out

Its deadly opposite. I lately saw

A lamb stung by a reptile: the poor suckling
Lay foaming on the earth, beneath the vain

And piteous bleating of its restless dam;

280

290

My father plucked some herbs, and laid them to
The wound; and by degrees the helpless wretch
Resumed its careless life, and rose to drain
The mother's milk, who o'er it tremulous
Stood licking its reviving limbs with joy.
Behold, my son! said Adam, how from Evil
Springs Good!1

Lucifer.

Cain.

What didst thou answer?

He is my father: but I thought, that 'twere
A better portion for the animal

Never to have been stung at all, than to
Purchase renewal of its little life

With agonies unutterable, though

Dispelled by antidotes.

Lucifer.

But as thou saidst

Of all beloved things thou lovest her

Nothing; for

300

Cain. All things, my father says; but I confess

I see it not in their allotment here.

Lucifer. And, therefore, thou canst not see if I love Or no except some vast and general purpose,

To which particular things must melt like snows.
Cain. Snows! what are they?

Lucifer.
Be happier in not knowing
What thy remoter offspring must encounter ;

I. ["If you say that God permitted sin to manifest His wisdom, which shines the more brightly by the disorders which the wickedness of men produces every day, than it would have done in a state of innocence, it may be answered that this is to compare the Deity to a father who should suffer his children to break their legs on purpose to show to all the city his great art in setting their broken bones; or to a king who should suffer seditions and factions to increase through all his kingdom, that he might purchase the glory of quelling them. . . . This is that doctrine of a Father of the Church who said, Felix culpa quæ talem Redemptorem meruit!'"-Bayle's Dictionary, 1737, art. "Paulicians," note B, 25, iv. 515.]

But bask beneath the clime which knows no winter. Cain. But dost thou not love something like thyself? Lucifer. And dost thou love thyself?

Cain.
Yes, but love more 320
What makes my feelings more endurable,
And is more than myself, because I love it!
Lucifer. Thou lovest it, because 'tis beautiful,
As was the apple in thy mother's eye;
And when it ceases to be so, thy love
Will cease, like any other appetite.1

Cain. Cease to be beautiful! how can that be?
Lucifer. With time.

Cain.

But time has passed, and hitherto Even Adam and my mother both are fair: Not fair like Adah and the Seraphim

But very fair.

Lucifer.

All that must pass away

In them and her.

Cain.

I'm sorry for it; but
Cannot conceive my love for her the less:
And when her beauty disappears, methinks
He who creates all beauty will lose more
Than me in seeing perish such a work.

Lucifer. I pity thee who lovest what must perish.
Cain. And I thee who lov'st nothing.

Lucifer.

Sits he not near thy heart?

Cain.

330

And thy brother

Why should he not?

Lucifer. Thy father loves him well-so does thy God. 340

Cain. And so do I.

1. [Lucifer does not infect Cain with his cynical theories as to the origin and endurance of love. For the antidote, compare Wordsworth's sonnet "To a Painter " (No. 11), written in 1841

"Morn into noon did pass, noon into eve,
And the old day was welcome as the young,
As welcome, and as beautiful-in sooth

More beautiful, as being a thing more holy," etc.

Works, 1889, p. 772.]

Cain.

Let him keep

Her favour, since the Serpent was the first
To win it.

Lucifer. And his father's?
Cain.

What is that

To me? should I not love that which all love?
Lucifer. And the Jehovah-the indulgent Lord,
And bounteous planter of barred Paradise-
He, too, looks smilingly on Abel.

Ne'er saw him, and I know not if he smiles.
Lucifer. But you have seen his angels.
Cain.

Lucifer.

Sufficiently to see they love your brother:
His sacrifices are acceptable.

350

Rarely.

But

Cain. So be they! wherefore speak to me of this?
Lucifer. Because thou hast thought of this ere now.
Cain.

And if

I have thought, why recall a thought that-(he pauses as agitated)-Spirit!

Here we are in thy world; speak not of mine.

Thou hast shown me wonders: thou hast shown me those Mighty Pre-Adamites who walked the earth

Of which ours is the wreck: thou hast pointed out 360 Myriads of starry worlds, of which our own

Is the dim and remote companion, in

Infinity of life: thou hast shown me shadows

Of that existence with the dreaded name

Which my sire brought us-Death; thou hast shown

me much

But not all show me where Jehovah dwells,

In his especial Paradise-or thine:

Where is it?

Lucifer.

Cain.

Here, and o'er all space.

But ye

Have some allotted dwelling-as all things;

Clay has its earth, and other worlds their tenants; 370 All temporary breathing creatures their

Peculiar element; and things which have

i. Which my sire shrinks from—Death

—.—[MS. erased.]