Are you of heaven? Lucifer.

480

Alas, no! and you –

Lucifer.

The cause of this all-spreading happiness (Which you proclaim) of the all-great and good

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.

490

Lucifer. By all.

What all?

The million millions

The myriad myriads the all-peopled

earth

hour;

But in that hour see things of many days.
Adah. How can that be?
Lucifer.

Did not your Maker make Out of old worlds this new one in few

days?

And cannot I, who aided in this work, Show in an hour what he hath made in many,

Or hath destroy'd in few?

Cain. Aduh.

Lead on.

Will he, 530

He shall.

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:

We breathe not by a mortal measure

ment

But that's a mystery. Cain, come on with

me.

Adah. Will he return?
Lucifer.

Ay, woman! he alone Of mortals from that place (the first and last Who shall return, save ONE) shall come

back to thee,

540

To make that silent and expectant world
As populous as this: at present there
Are few inhabitants.
Adah.
Where dwellest thou?
Lucifer. Throughout all space. Where
should I dwell? Where are
Thy God or Gods — there am I: all things

are

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 waterdrops,

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, 20
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
What thon dar'st not deny, the history
Of past, and present, and of future worlds.
Cain. Oh, god, or demon, or whate'er
thou art,
yon our earth?
Lucifer.

Is

Dost thou not recognise The dust which form'd your father? Cain.

Can it be?

Is this blue wilderness of interminable
Air, where ye roll along, as I have seen
The leaves along the limpid streams of
Eden?

Is your course measured for ye? Or do ye
Sweep on in your unbounded revelry
Through an aërial universe of endless
Expansion-at which my soul aches to
think-

Intoxicated with eternity?

Oh God! Oh Gods! or whatsoe'er ye are! 110 How beautiful ye are ! how beautiful Your works, or accidents, or whatsoe'er They may be! Let me die as atoms die (If that they die), or know ye in your might And knowledge! My thoughts are not in this hour

Unworthy what I see, though my dust is; Spirit! let me expire, or see them nearer. Lucifer. Art thou not nearer ? look back to thine earth!

Cain. Where is it? I see nothing save a