To the most gross and petty paltry wants,
All foul and fulsome, and the very best

Of thine enjoyments a sweet degradation,
A most enervating and filthy cheat

To lure thee on to the renewal of

Fresh souls and bodies, all foredoom'd to be
As frail, and few so happy—

Know nought of death, save as a dreadful thing
Of which I have heard my parents speak, as of
A hideous heritage I owe to them

No less than life; a heritage not happy,
If I may judge, till now. But, spirit! if
It be as thou hast said (and I within
Feel the prophetic torture of its truth),
Here let me die: for to give birth to those
Who can but suffer many years, and die,
Methinks is merely propagating death,
And multiplying murder.

He shut him forth from Paradise, with death
Written upon his forehead. But at least
Let what is mortal of me perish, that

I may be in the rest as angels are.

Lucifer. I am angelic: wouldst thou be as I am? Cain. I know not what thou art: I see thy power, And see thou show'st me things beyond my power, Beyond all power of my born faculties,

Although inferior still to my desires

And my conceptions.

Lucifer.

What are they which dwell

So humbly in their pride, as to sojourn
With worms in clay?

Cain.

And what art thou who dwellest

So haughtily in spirit, and canst range
Nature and immortality-and yet

Seem'st sorrowful?

Lucifer.

I seem that which I am;

And therefore do I ask of thee, if thou

Wouldst be immortal?

Cain.

Thou hast said, I must be

90

Immortal in despite of me. I knew not

This until lately-but since it must be,
Let me, or happy or unhappy, learn

To anticipate my immortality.

Lucifer. Thou didst before I came upon thee.
Cain.

Lucifer. By suffering.

Cain.

How?

And must torture be immortal?

Lucifer. We and thy sons will try. But now, behold! Is it not glorious?

And unimaginable ether! and

Ye multiplying masses of increased

And still increasing lights! what are ye? what

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 aerial universe of endless
Expansion-at which my soul aches to think—
Intoxicated with eternity?

O God! O Gods! or whatsoe'er ye are !
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.

100

ΣΤΟ

Lucifer. Art thou not nearer? Look back to thine

earth!

Cain. Where is it? I see nothing save a mass

Of most innumerable lights.

120

And wilt thou tell me so?

Cain. That!-yonder!

Lucifer.

Cain.

Why, I have seen the fire-flies and fire-worms
Sprinkle the dusky groves and the green banks
In the dim twilight, brighter than yon world
Which bears them.

Lucifer. Thou hast seen both worms and worlds,
Each bright and sparkling-what dost think of them?
Cain. That they are beautiful in their own sphere,
And that the night, which makes both beautiful,
The little shining fire-fly in its flight,

And the immortal star in its great course,

Must both be guided.

130

Wouldst thou behold things mortal or immortal?

Cain. Why, what are things?

Lucifer. What, if I show to thee things which have died,

As I have shown thee much which cannot die?

Cain. Do so.

Lucifer.

Away, then, on our mighty wings.

Cain. Oh, how we cleave the blue! The stars fade

from us!

. The earth! where is my earth ? Let me look on it,

For I was made of it.

Lucifer.

'Tis now beyond thee,

Less, in the universe, than thou in it;

Yet deem not that thou canst escape it: thou

Shalt soon return to earth and all its dust :

'Tis part of thy eternity, and mine.

Cain. Where dost thou lead me?
Lucifer.

150

To what was before thee

The phantasm of the world; of which thy world
Is but the wreck.

Cain.

What is it not then new?

Lucifer. No more than life is; and that was ere thou Or I were, or the things which seem to us

Greater than either: many things will have

No end; and some, which would pretend to have
Had no beginning, have had one as mean
As thou; and mightier things have been extinct
To make way for much meaner than we can
Surmise; for moments only and the space
Have been and must be all unchangeable.
But changes make not death, except to clay :
But thou art clay—and canst but comprehend
That which was clay; and such thou shalt behold.
Cain. Clay, spirit! what thou wilt, I can survey.
Lucifer. Away, then!

Cain.

160

But the lights fade from me fast,

And some till now grew larger as we approach'd,
And wore the look of worlds.

Lucifer.

170

And such they are.

Lucifer. Wouldst thou have men without them? must

Are beings past, and shadows still to come.

Cain. But it grows dark, and dark-the stars are gone! Lucifer. And yet thou seest.

'Tis a fearful light!

180

Cain.
No sun, no moon, no lights innumerable.
The very blue of the empurpled night
Fades to a dreary twilight, yet I see

Huge dusky masses: but unlike the worlds
We were approaching, which, begirt with light,
Seem'd full of life even when their atmosphere
Of light gave way, and show'd them taking shapes
Unequal, of deep valleys and vast mountains;
And some emitting sparks, and some displaying
Enormous liquid plains, and some begirt

With luminous belts, and floating moons, which took,
Like them, the features of fair earth :—instead,
All here seems dark and dreadful.

But distinct.

Lucifer.
Thou seekest to behold death and dead things?

Cain. I seek it not: but as I know there are
Such, and that my sire's sin makes him and me,
And all that we inherit, liable

To such, I would behold at once, what I

Must one day see perforce.

190

Lucifer.

Cain.

Behold.

'Tis darkness.