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Through her olympiads two such names, though one
Of hers be mighty;-and is this the whole
Of such men's destiny beneath the sun?

Must all the finer thoughts, the thrilling sense,
The electric blood with which their arteries run,
Their body's self turn'd soul with the intense
Feeling of that which is, and fancy of
That which should be, to such a recompense
Conduct? shall their bright plumage on the rough
Storm be still scatter'd? Yes, and it must be,
For, form'd of far too penetrable stuff,
These birds of Paradise but long to flee

Back to their native inansion, soon they find
Earth's mist with their pure pinions not agree,
And die or are degraded, for the mind

Succumbs to long infection, and despair, And vulture passions flying close behind, Await the moment to assail and tear;

And when at length the winged wanderers stoop, Then is the prey-bird's triumph, then they share The spoil, o'erpower'd at length by one fell swoop. Yet some have been untouch'd who learn'd to bear, Some whom no power could ever force to droop, Who could resist themselves even, hardest care!

And task most hopeless; but some such have been, And if my name among the number were, That destiny austere, and yet serene,

Were prouder than more dazzling fame unblest; The Alp's snow summit nearer heaven is seen Than the volcano's fierce eruptive crest,

Whose splendour from the black abyss is flung, While the scorch'd mountain, from whose burning breast

A temporary torturing flame is wrung,

Shines for a night of terror, then repels

Its fire back to the hell from whence it sprung, The hell which in its entrails ever dwells

CANTO IV.

Many are poets who have never penn'd

Their inspiration, and perchance the best:
They felt, and loved, and died, but would not lend
Their thoughts to meaner beings; they compress'd
The god within them, and rejoin'd the stars
Unlaurell'd upon earth, but far more blest
Than those who are degraded by the jars

Of passion, and their frailties link'd to fame,
Conquerors of high renown, but ful: of scars.
Many are poets but without the name,
For what is poesy but to create
From overfeeling good or ill; and aim
At an external life beyond our fate,

And be the new Prometheus of new men,
Bestowing fire from heaven, and then, too late,
Finding the pleasure given repaid with pain,

And vultures to the heart of the bestower, Who having lavish'd his high gift in vain, Lies chain'd to his lone rock by the seashore? So be it: we can bear.-But thus all they Whose intellect is an o'ermastering power Which still recoils from its incumbering clay Or lightens it to spirit, whatsoe'er

The form which their creations may essay Are bards; the kindled marble's bust may wear More poesy upon its speaking brow

Than aught less than the Homeric page may bear; One noble stroke with a whole life may glow, 'Or deify the canvass till it shine

With beauty so surpassing all below, That they who kneel to idols so divine

Break no commandment, for high heaven is there Transfused, transfigurated: and the line Of poesy, which peoples but the air

With thought and beings of our thought reflected.
Can do no more: then let the artist share
The palm, he shares the peril, and dejected
Faints o'er the labour unapproved-Alas!
Despair and Genius are too oft connected
Within the ages which before me pass

Art shall resume and equal even the sway
Which with Apelles and old Phidias
She held in Hellas' unforgotten day.

Ye shall be taught by Ruin to revive
The Grecian forms at least from their decay,
And Roman souls at last again shall live

In Roman works wrought by Italian hands,
And temples, loftier than the old temples, give
New wonders to the world; and while still stands
The austere Pantheon, into heaven shall soat
A dome, 12 image, while the base expands
Into a fame surpassing all before,

Such as all flesh shall flock to kneel in: ne'er
Such sight hath been unfolded by a door
As this, to which all nations shall repair,

And lay their sins at this huge gate of heaven
And the bold Architect unto whose care
The daring charge to raise it shall be given,
Whom all arts shall acknowledge as their lord,
Whether into the marble chaos driven
His chisel bid the Hebrew, 13 at whose word
Israel left Egypt, stop the waves in stone,
Or hues of hell be by his pencil pour'd
Over the damn'd before the Judgment throne,
Such as I saw them, such as all shall see,
Or fanes be built of grandeur yet unknown,
The stream of his great thoughts shall spring from mer
The Ghibelline, who traversed the three realms
Which form the empire of eternity.

Amidst the clash of swords, and clang of helms,
The age which I anticipate, no less

Shall be the Age of Beauty, and while whelms
Calamity the nations with distress,

The genius of my country shall arise,
A Cedar towering o'er the Wilderness,
Lovely in all its branches to all eyes,

Fragrant as fair, and recognised afar,
Wafting its native incense through the skies.
Sovereigns shall pause amidst their sport of war,
Wean'd for an hour from blood, to turn and gaze
On canvass or on stone; and they who mar
All beauty upon earth, compell'd to praise,
Shall feel the power of that which they destroy,
And Art's mistaken gratitude shall raise
To tyrants, who but take her for a toy,
Emblems and monuments, and prostitute
Her charms to pontiffs proud, who but employ
The man of genius as the meanest brute
To bear a burden, and to serve a need,
To sell his labours and his soul to boot.
Who toils for nations may be poor indeed,

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But free; who sweats for monarchs is no more
Than the gilt chamberlain, who, c.othed and fee'a
Stands sleek and slavish, bowing at his door.
Oh, Power that rulest and inspirest! how

Is it that they on earth, whose earthly power
Is likest thine in heaven in outward show,
Least like to thee in attributes divine,
Tread on the universa. necks that bow,
And then assure us that their rights are thine?
And how is it that they, the sons of fame,
Whose inspiration seems to them to shine
From high, they whom the nations oftest name,
Must pass their days in penury or pain,

Or step to grandeur through the paths of shame
And wear a deeper brand and gaudier chain?
Or if their destiny be born aloof
From lowliness, or tempted thence in vain,
In their own souls sustain a harder proof,

The inner war of passions deep and fierce ? Florence! when thy harsh sentence razed my roof, I loved thee; but the vengeance of my verse,

The hate of injuries which every year
Makes greater, and accumulates my curse,
Shall live, outliving all thou holdest dear,

Thy pride, thy wealth, thy freedom, and even that,
The most infernal of all evils here,

The sway of petty tyrants in a state;

For such sway is not limited to kings
And demagogues yield to them but in date
As swept off sooner; in all deadly things

Which make men hate themselves, and one another,
In discord, cowardice, cruelty, all that springs
From Death the Sin-born's incest with his mother,
In rank oppression in its rudest shape,

The faction Chief is but the Sultan's brother,
And the worst despot's far less human ape :
Florence! when this lone spirit, which so long
Yearn'd, as the captive toiling at escape,
To fly back to thee in despite of wrong,
An exile, saddest of all prisoners,

Who has the whole world for a dungeon strong,

Seas, mountains, and the horizon's verge for bars,
Which shut him from the sole small spot of earth
Where-whatso'er his fate-he still were hers,
His country's, and might die where he had birth-
Florence! when this lone spirit shall return
To kindred spirits, thou wilt feel my worth
And seek to honour with an empty urn

The ashes thou shalt ne'er obtain-Alas!
"What have I done to thee, my people?" 7 Sterr
Are all thy dealings, but in this they pass
The limits of man's common malice, for
All that a citizen could be I was;

Raised by thy will, all thine in peace or war

And for this thou hast warr'd with me.-'T is done :
I may not overleap the eternal bar
Built up between us, and will die alone,

Beholding with the dark eye of a seer
The evil days to gifted souls foreshown,
Fortelling them to those who will not hear
As in the old time, till the hour be come
When Truth shall strike their eyes through many

a tear,

And make them own the Prophet in his tomb.

NOTES TO PROPHECY OF DANTE.

Note 1, page 206, line 11.
Midst whom my own bright Beatrice bless'd.
THE reader is requested to adopt the Italian pronun-
ciation of Beatrice, sounding all the syllables.

Note 2, page 206, line 27.

My paradise had still been incomplete. "Che sol per le belle opre

Che fanno in Cielo il sole e l' altre stelle
Dentro di lui' si erede il Paradiso,
Così se guardi fiso

Pensar ben dèi ch' ogni terren' piacere. Canzone, in which Dante describes the person of trice, Strophe third.

Note 3, page 207, line 20.

I would have had my Florence great and free. "L'Esilio che m' è dato onor mi tegno.

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uoli e uffici della Repubblica nella sua Città; e Aristotele che, &c. &c. ebbe due mogli in varj tempi, ed ebbe figliuoli, e ricchezze assai.-E Marco Tullio-e Ca tone-e Varrone-e Seneca-ebbero moglie," &c. &c. It is odd that honest Lionardo's examples, with the ex ception of Seneca, and for any thing I know of Aris totle, are not the most felicitous. Tully's Terentia, and Socrates' Xantippe, by no means contributed to their husbands' happiness, whatever they might do to their philosophy-Cato gave away his wife of Varro's we know nothing-and of Seneca's, only that she was disposed to die with him, but recovered, and lived several years afterwards. But says Lionardo, "L'uoBea-mo è animale civile, secondo piace a tutti i filosofi." And thence concludes that the greatest proof of the animal's civism is "la prima congiunzione, dalla quale multiplicata nasce la Città."

Cader tra' buoni è pur di lode degno." Sonnet of Dante, in which he represents Right, Generosity, and Tempe rance as banished from among men, and seeking refuge from Love, who inhabits his bosom.

Note 4, page 207, line 36.

The dust she dooms to scatter.

"Ut si quis predictorum ullo tempore in fortiam dicti Communis pervenerit, tallis perveniens igne comburatur, sic quod moriatur."

Second sentence of Florence against Dante, and the fourteen accused with him.-The Latin is worthy of the sentence.

Note 5, page 207, line 133.
Where yet my boys ure, and that fatal she.

This lady, whose name was Gemma, sprung from one of the most powerful Guelf families, named Donati. Corso Donati was the principal adversary of the Ghibellines. She is described as being "Admodum morosa, ut de Xantippe Socratis philosophi conjuge scriptum esse legimus," according to Giannozza Manetti. But Lionardo Aretino is scandalized with Boccace, in his life of Dante, for saying that literary men should not marry. "Qui il Boccaccio non ha pazienza, e dice, le mogli esser contrarie agli studj; e non si ricorda che Socrate ilp iù nobile filosofo che mai fosse, ebbe moglie e figli

Note 6, page 208, line 85.

Nine moons shall rise o'er scenes like this and set.

See "Sacco di Roma," generally attributed to Guicciardini. There is another written by a Jacopo Buonaparte, Gentiluomo Samminiatese che vi si trovo presente.

Note 7, page 209, line 39.

Conquerors on foreign shores, and the far wave. Alexander of Parma, Spinola, Pescara, Eugene of Savoy, Montecucco.

Note 8, page 209, line 40.

Discoverers of new worlds, which take their name.
Columbus, Americus Vespusius, Sebastian Cabot,
Note 9, page 209, line 73.

He who once enters in a tyrant's hall, &c.
A verse from the Greek tragedians, with which
Pompey took leave of Cornelia on entering the boar un
which he was slain.

Note 10, page 209, lines 75 and 76.
And the first day which sees the chain enthral, &c.
The verse and sentiment are taken from Homer
Note 11, page 209, line 93.

And the, their prince, shall rank among my poera,
Petrarch.

Note 12, page 210, line 87.
A dome, its image.

The cupola of St. Peter's.

Note 13, page 210, line 97.

His chisel bid the Hebrew.

The statue of Moses on the monument of Julius II.

SONETTO

Di Giovanni Battista Zappi.

Chi è costui, che in dura pietra scolto,
Siede gigante; e le più iilustre, e conte
Prove dell' arte avvanza, e ha vive, e pronte
Le labbia sì, che le parole ascolto?
Quest'è Mosé; ben me 'l diceva il folto

Onor del mento, e 'l doppio raggio in fronte,
Quest' è Mosè, quando scendea del monte,
E gran parte del Nume avea nel volto.
Tal era allor, che le sonanti, e vaste

Acque ei sospese a se d' intorno, e tale
Quando il mar chiuse, e ne fe tomba altrui.
E voi sue turbe un rio vitello alzate?

Alzata aveste imago a questa eguale!
Ch' era men fallo l'adorar costul

Note 14, page 210, line 100.

Over the damn'd before the Judgment throne
The Last Judgment in the Sistine chapel.

Note 15, page 210, line 103.

The stream of his great thoughts shall spring from me. I have read somewhere (if I do not err, for I cannul recollect where) that Dante was so great a favourite of Michel's Angiolo's, that he had designed the whole of the Divina Commedia; but that the volume containing these studies was lost by sea.

Note 16, page 210, line 123.

Her charms to pontiff's prowl, who but employ, &c. See the treatment of Michel Angiolo by Julius II and his neglect by Leo X.

Note 17, page 211, line 32.

"What have I done to thee, my people?"

"E scrisse più volte non solamente a particolanı cittydini del reggimento, ma ancora al popolo, e intra l'altre una Epistola assai lunga che comincia :-'Popule mi, quid feci tibi?'" Vita di Dante scritta da Lionardo Aretino.

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"Now the Serpent was more subtile than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.”—Gen. iä. 1.

TO SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART.

THIS "MYSTERY OF CAIN" IS INSCRIBED
BY HIS OBLIGED FRIEND, AND FAITHFUL SERVANT,

THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

have not been recently familiar. Since I was twenty 1 have never read Milton; but I had read him so frequently THE following scenes are entitled "a Mystery," in before, that this may make little difference. Gesner's conformity with the ancient title annexed to dramas upon "Death of Abel" I have never read since I was eight similar subjects, which were styled "Mysteries, or Mo-years of age, at Aberdeen. The general impression of ralities." The author has by no means taken the same my recollection is delight; but of the contents I remember liberties with his subject which were common formerly, only that Cain's wife was called Mahala, and Abel's as may be seen by any reader curious enough to refer Thirza: in the following pages I have called them" Adah" to those very profane productions, whether in English, and "Zilla," the earliest female names which occur in French, Italian, or Spanish. The author has endeavoured Genesis; they were those of Lamech's wives: those of to preserve the language adapted to his characters; and Cain and Abel are not called by their names. Whether, where it is (and this is but rarely) taken from actual then, a coincidence of subject may have caused the same Scripture, he has made as little alteration, even of words, in expression, I know nothing, and care as little. as the rhythm would permit. The reader will recollec: The reader will please to bear in mind (what few that the book of Genesis does not state that Eve was choose to recollect) that there is no allusion to a future tempted by a demon, but by "the Serpent ;" and that only state in any of the books of Moses, nor indeed in the Ord because he was "the most subtile of all the beasts of the Testament. For a reason for this extraordinary omission field." Whatever interpretation the Rabbins and the he may consult "Warburton's Divine Legation" whether Fathers may have put upon this, I must take the words satisfactory or not, no better has yet been assigned. I as I find them, and reply with Bishop Watson upon simi- have therefore supposed it new to Cain, without, I hope, lar occasions, when the Fathers were quoted to him, as any perversion of Holy Writ. Moderator in the schools of Cambridge, "Behold the Book!"-holding up the Scripture. It is to be recollected that my present subject has nothing to do with the New Testament, to which no reference can be here made withut anachronism. With the poems upon similar topics I

With regard to the language of Lucifer, it was difficult for me to make him talk like a clergyman upon the same subjects; but I have done what I could to restrain him within the bounds of spiritual politeness.

If he disclaims having tempted Eve in the shape of the

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Serpent, it is only because the book of Genesis has not the most distant allusion to any thing of the kind, but merely to the Serpent in his serpentine capacity.

Note.-The reader will perceive that the author has partly adopted in this poem the notion of Cuvier, that the world had been destroyed several times before the crea tion of man. This speculation, derived from the different strata and the bones of enormous and unknown animals found in them, is not contrary to the Mosaic account, but rather confirms it; as no human bones have yet been discovered in those strata, although those of many known animals are found near the remains of the unknown. The assertion of Lucifer, that the pre-adamite world was also peopled by rational beings much more intelligent than man, and proportionably powerful to the mammoth, &c. &c. is, of course, a poetical fiction to help him to make out his case.

I ought to add, that there is a "Tramelogedie" of Alfieri. called "Abel."-I have never read that nor any other of the posthumous works of the writer, except his Life.

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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.

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 hie?
Ye might have then defied him.
Oh! my son

Adam.
Baspheme 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 renew'd
My misery in thine. I have repented.
Let me not see my offspring fall into
The snares beyond the walls of Paradise,
Which e'en in Paradise destroy'd 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.

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I fain would be alone a little while.
Abel, I'm sick at heart; but it will pass:
Precede 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.

Be on your spirit, brother!

The peace of God

[Exeunt ABEL, ZILLAH, and ADAH
And this is

Cain, (solus.)
Life!-Toil! and wherefore should I toil?-because
My father could not keep his place in Eder.
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

Adam. Son Cain, my first-born, wherefore art thou The fairest in the centre? They have but

silent?

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One answer to all questions, "'t was 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 walis
And the immortal trees which overtop

The cherubim-defended battlements?

If I shrink not from these, the fire-arm'd angels,
Why should I quail from him who now approaches?
Yet he seems mightier far than they, 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.

Enter LUCIFER.

Lucifer. Mortal!
Cain.

Spirit, who art thou?

Lucifer. Master of spirits.
Cain.

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 burdensome to his immense existence

And unparticipated solitude!

Let him crowd orb on orb: he is alone

Indefinite, indissoluble tyrant!

Could he but crush himself, 't were the best boon

And being so, canst thou He ever granted: but let him reign on,

Leave them, and walk with dust?
Lucifer.

Of dust, and feel for it, and with
Cain.

You know my thonghts?

Lucifer.

Worthy of thought;-'t is
Which speaks within you.
Cain.

And multiply himself in misery!

I know the thoughts Spirits and men, at least we sympathise,
And, suffering in concert, make our pangs,
Innumerable, more endurable,

you.

How!

By the unbounded sympathy of all—

They are the thoughts of all With all! But He! so wretched in his height,
So restless in his wretchedness, must still
Create, and re-create-

your immortal part

This has not been reveal'd:

What immortal part?
the tree of life

Was withheld from us by my father's folly,
While that of knowledge, by my mother's haste,
Was pluck'd too soon; and all the fruit is death!

Lucifer. They have deceived thee; thou shalt live.
Cain.

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!

I live,

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

Lucifer. Thou livest, and must live for ever: think not This misery was mine.-My father is

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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.
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.
No: art thou?'T is well-I rather would consort with spirits.
Lucifer. And hadst thou not been fit by thine own

Cain. And ye?

Lucifer

Are everlasting.

Cain.

Are ye happy?

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Are ye happy?

Lucifer.

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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.

The fruits, or neither!

Lucifer.

The other may be still.

Would they had snatch'd both

One is yours aloady

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