to Cain, without, I hope, any perversion of Holy Writ.

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 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.

and the Fathers may have put upon this, I must take the words as I find them, and reply with Bishop Watson upon similar With regard to the language of Lucifer, occasions, when the Fathers were quoted to it was difficult for me to make him talk him, as Moderator in the Schools of Cam-like a Clergyman upon the same subjects; bridge, "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 without anachronism. With the poems upon similar topics I have not been recently familiar. Since I was twenty, I have never read Milton; but I had read him so frequently before, that this may make little difference. Gesner's "Death of Abel" I have never read since I was eight years of age, at Aberdeen. The general impression of my recollection is delight; but of the contents I remember only that Cain's wife was called Mahala, and Abel's Thirza.- In the following pages I have called them Adah and Zillah, the earliest female names which occur in Genesis; they were those of Lamech's wives: those of Cain and Abel are not called by their names. Whether, then, a coincidence of subject may have caused the same in expression, I know nothing, and care as little. The reader will please to bear in mind (what few choose to recollect) that there is no allusion to a future state in any of the books of Moses, nor indeed in the Old Testament. For a reason for this extra- I ought to add, that there is a "Trameloordinary omission he may consult "War-gedie" of Alfieri, called “Abel.”—I have burton's Divine Legation;" whether satis- never read that nor any other of the factory or not, no better has yet been posthumous works of the writer, except assigned. I have therefore supposed it new his Life.

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 creation 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, is, of course, a poetical fiction to help him to make out his case.

separate

SCENE I-The Land without Paradise.- Morning from night, till then divided never

Time, Sunrise.

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!

Zillah. Wilt thou not, my brother? Abel. Why wilt thou wear this gloom upon thy brow,

Which can avail thee nothing, save to rouse

Who didst create these best and beauteous
beings,
To be beloved, more than all, save thee-The eternal anger?
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, where-
fore art thou silent?

Cain. Why should I speak!
Adam. To pray.

Cain. Have ye not pray'd?

Adam. We have, most fervently.
Cain. And loudly: I

Have heard you.

Adam. So will God, I trust.

Abel. Amen!

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

art 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

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

Cain. And wherefore pluck'd ye not the tree of life?

Ye might have then defied him.

Adam. Oh! my son.

Blaspheme not these are serpents' 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.

Eve. Cain, my son,
Behold thy father cheerful and resign'd,
And do as he doth. [Exeunt Adam and Evc.

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-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. 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.
Cain. How!

You know my thoughts?

Lucifer. They are the thoughts of all Worthy of thoughts; — 'tis your immortal part

Which speaks within you.

Cain. What immortal part?
This has not been reveal'd: 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. 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.

Cain No less! and why

No more?

Cain. And what is that?

Lucifer. Souls who dare use their im-
mortality-

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—

Cain. Thou speakst to me of things
which long have swum

In visions through my thought: I never could
Reconcile what I saw with what I heard.

Lucifer. It may be thou shalt be as we. My father and my mother talk to me

Cain. And ye?

Lucifer. Are everlasting.

Cain. Are ye happy?

Lucifer. We are mighty.
Cain. Are ye happy?
Lucifer. No: art thou?

Cain. How should I be so? Look on me!
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.
Cain. Ah!

Thou lookst almost a god; and —

Lucifer. I am none:

And having fail'd to be one, would be nought
Save what I am. He conquer'd; let him

reign! Cain. Who?

Lucifer. Thy sire's Maker, and the earth's.
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 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;
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

Of being that which I am--and thou art-For such companionship, I would not now Of spirits and of men.

Have stood before thee as I am: a serpent

Had been enough to charm ye, as before. That bows to him who made things but to
Cain. Ah! didst thou tempt my mother?
Lucifer. I tempt none,

Less than thy father's, for he wish'd to Thou ne'er hadst bent to him who made