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!

Lucifer. Dost thou curse thy father?
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 sayst well:

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. Yet they lived.
Cain. Where?

Lucifer. Where

Thou livest.

Cain. When?

Lucifer. On what thou callest earth They did inhabit.

Cain. Adam is the first.

Lucifer. Of thine, I grant thee—but too

mean to be

The last of these.

Cain. And what are they?
Lucifer. That which

Thou shalt be.

Cain. But what were they?
Lucifer. Living, high,

Cain. Let them share it

With me,their sire and brother! What else is Bequeath'd to me? I leave them my inher

itance.

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. Somewhat of both.
Cain. Then what is death?

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.
Cain. Happy the day!

Lucifer. Yes, happy! when unfolded Through agonies unspeakable, and clogg'd 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 unenter'd Eden,
Nor wear the form of man as I have view'd 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,

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.

Cain. Ah me! and did they perish? Lucifer. Yes, from their earth, as thou wilt fade from thine.

Cain. But was mine theirs?
Lucifer. It was.

Cain. But not as now.

It is too little and too lowly to
Sustain such creatures.

Lucifer. True, it was more glorious.
Cain. And wherefore did it fall?
Lucifer. Ask him who fells.
Cain. But how?

Lucifer. By a most crushing and inex

orable

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.
Cain. 'Tis awful!

Lucifer. And true. Behold these phantoms! they were once

Material as thou art.
Cain. And must I be
Like them?

Lucifer. Let Him who made thee answer that.

I show thee what thy predecessors are,

Of your poor attributes is such as suits Reptiles engender'd out of the subsiding Slime of a mighty universe, crush'd into A scarcely-yet shaped planet, peopled with Things whose enjoyment was to be in blindness

A Paradise of Ignorance, from which
Knowledge was barr'd 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. No: I'll stay here.
Lucifer. How long?
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 pass'd

The gates of death.

Cain. By what gate have we enter'd Even now?

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 harden'd 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

And tusks projecting like the trees stripp'd 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.
Cain. But
None on it?

Lucifer. No: for thy frail race to war With them would render the curse on it useless

"Twould be destroy'd so early. Cain. But why war?

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 animalsDid 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,

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.
Cain. We knew already
That there was death.

Lucifer. But not what was beyond it.
Cain. Nor know I now.

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

Thy world and thon 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 mayst 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

The road to happiness.

Lucifer. If truth be so, Thou hast it.

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

I have thought, why recal 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 walk'd the earth Of which ours is the wreck; thou hast pointed out

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. Here, and o'er all space.
Cain. But ye

Have some allotted dwelling - as all things;
Clay has its earth, and other worlds their

tenants;

All temporary breathing creatures their Peculiar element; and things which have, Long ceased to breathe our breath, have theirs, thou sayst;

The little I have shown thee into calm And clear thought; and thou wouldst go on aspiring

To

the great double Mysteries! the two Principles!

And gaze upon them on their secret thrones! Dust! limit thy ambition, for to see Either of these, would be for thee to perish!

Cain. And let me perish, so I see them! Lucifer. There

The son of her who snatch'd the apple spake! But thou wouldst only perish, and not see them;

That sight is for the other state.

Cain. Of death?

Lucifer. That is the prelude.
Cain. Then I dread it less,

Lucifer. No, we reign

Together, but our dwellings are asunder. Cain. Would there were only one of ye! perchance

An unity of purpose might make union
In elements which seem now jarr'd in storms.
How came ye, being spirits, wise and infinite,
To separate? Are ye not as brethren in
Your essence, and your nature, and your
glory?

Lucifer. Art thou not Abel's brother?
Cain. We are brethren,

And so we shall remain; but were it not so,
Is spirit like to flesh? can it fall out?
Infinity with Immortality?

Jarring and turning space to misery—
For what?

Lucifer. To reign.

Cain. Did ye not tell me that
Ye are both eternal?
Lucifer. Yea!

Cain. And what I have seen,
Yon blue immensity, is boundless?

that I know it leads to something definite.

Lucifer. And now I will convey thee to thy world,

Where thou shalt multiply the race of Adam, Eat, drink, toil, tremble, laugh, weep, sleep, and die.

Cain. And to what end have I beheld these things

Which thou hast shown me?

Lucifer. Didst thou not require Knowledge? And have I not, in what I show'd,

Taught thee to know thyself?
Cain. Alas! I seem