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
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 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.

Of being that which I am-and thou art-
Of spirits and of men.

Cain.
And what is that?
Lucifer. Souls who dare use their immortality-
Souls who dare look the Omnipotent tyrant ir
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
And being so, canst thou Evil; and what else hath he made? But let him
Sit on his vast and solitary throne,

Spirit, who art thou?
Lucifer. Master of spirits.
Cain.

Leave them, and walk with dust?
Lucifer.

I know the thoughts Creating worlds, to make eternity

Uf dust, and feel for it, and with you.
Cain.

You know my thoughts?
Lucifer.

How!

Less burdensome to his immense existence
And unparticipated solitude!

Let him crowd orb on orb: he is alone

They are the thoughts of all Indefinite, indissoluble tyrant!

Worthy of thought;-'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,

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 sympathize;
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 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

Lucifer. Thou livest, and must live for ever: 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 weigh.
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 sympathize with me.
"Tis well-I rather would consort with spirits.
Lucifer. And hadst thou not been fit by thine
own soul

For such companionship, I would not now
Have stood before thee as I am a serpent
Had been enough to charm ye, as before.

Cain. Ah! didst thou tempt my mother?
Lucifer.

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,

Cain. But not to live, or wherefore pluck'd he not Have less without thee. Thou hast labor'd not

What is true knowledge.
Cain.

Wilt thou teach me all? But he is welcome, as they were: they deign'd Lucifer Ay, upon one condition. Cain.

Name it.

To be our guests-will he?
Cain. (to Lucifer.)
Lucifer.

Wilt thou?

I ask

Lucifer. The sin I speak of is aot of my making, | And cannot be a sin in you-whate'er

It seem in those who will replace ye in

Mortality.
Adah.

What is the sin which is not

Sin in itself? Can circumstance make sin
Or virtue ?-if it doth, we are the slaves

Of

Cain. Did they love us when they snatch'd from
the tree

That which hath driven us all from Paradise?
Adah. We were not born then-and if we had
been,

Lucifer. Higher things than ye are slaves; and Should we not love them and our children, Cain?

higher

Than them or ye would be so, did they not

Prefer an independency of torture

To the smooth agonies of adulation

In hymns and harpings, and self-seeking prayers
To that which is omnipotent because

It is omnipotent, and not from love,
But terror and self-hope.

Adah.

Must be all goodness.

Lucifer.

Omnipotence

Was it so in Eden?

Cain. My little Enoch and his lisping sister.
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,

Adah. Fiend! tempt me not with beauty; thou art To inherit agonies accumulated

Hast p'uck'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;
I look upon 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!
Cain. What dreads my Adah? This is no ill spirit.
Adah. He is not God-nor God's: I have beheld
The cherubs and the seraphs: he looks not
Like them.
Cain.

But there are spirits loftier still

The archangels.

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
knowledge

Hath not fuifill'd its promise:-if they sinn'd,
At least they ought to have known all things that

are

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-
I will have nought to do with happiness,
Which humbles me and mine.

Adah.
Alone I could not,
Nor would be happy; but with those around us,
I think I could be so, despite of death,
Which, as I know it not, I dread not, though
It seems an awful shadow-if I may
Judge from what I have heard.
Lucifer.

And thou couldst not

Alone, thou say'st be happy?
Adah.
Alone! Oh, my God!
Who could be happy and alone, or good?

Lucifer. And still loftier than the archangels. To me my solitude seems sin; unless
Adah. Ay-but not blessed.
Lucifer.

Consists in slavery-no.

Adah.

If the blessedness

I have heard it said,
The seraphs love most-cherubim know most-
And this should be a cherub-since he loves not.
Lucifer. And if the higher knowledge quenches
love,

What must he be you cannot love when known?
Since the all-knowing cherubim love least,
The seraphs' love can be but ignorance:
That they are not compatible, the doom
Of thy fond parents, for their daring, proves.
Choose betwixt love and knowledge-since there is
No other choice: your sire hath chosen already:
His worship is but fear.

When I think how soon I shall see my brother,
His brother, and our children, and our parents.
Lucifer. Yet thy God is alone, and is he happy?
Lonely and good?

Adah.
He is not so; he hath
The angels and the mortals to make happy,
And thus becomes so in diffusing joy?
What else can joy be but the spreading joy?
Lucifer. Ask of your sire, the exile fresh from
Eden;

Or of his first-born son; ask your own heart;
It is not tranquil.

Maker of life and living things; it is

His secret, and he keeps it. We must bear,
And some of us resist, and both in vain,
His seraphs say: but it is worth the trial,
Since better may not be without: there is
A wisdom in the spirit, which directs
To right as in the dim blue air the eye
Of you, young mortals, lights at once upon
The star which watches, welcoming the morn
Adah. It is a beautiful star; I love it for
Its beauty.
Lucifer.
Adah.

And why not adore ?

Our father

But the symbols

Adores the Invisible only.

Lucifer.

Of the Invisible are the loveliest

Of what is visible; and yon bright star

Is leader of the host of heaven.
Adah.

Our father

Saith that he has beheld the God himself

Who made him and our mother.

Lucifer.

Adah. Yes-in his works.
Lucifer.

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,

Hast thou seen him? Could I stand here? His angels are within

But in his being?

Adah.
Save in my father, who is God's own image;
Or in his angels, who are like to thee-
And brighter, yet less beautiful and powerful
In seeming as the silent sunny noon,

Your vision.

Adah. So they were when the fair serper.t No-Spoke with our mother first.

in sooth return within an hour?
Lucifer.

With us acts are exempt from time, and we
Can crowd eternity into an hour,

Or stretch an hour into eternity:

SCENE I.

Would run the edict of the other God,
Who names me demon to his angels; they

Echo the sound to miserable things,

Which, knowing nought beyond their shallow senses,
Worship the word which strikes their ear, and deen
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
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