LXXI.

Thus lived-thus died she; never more on her
Shall sorrow light, or shame. She was not made
Through years or moons the inner weight to bear,
Which colder hearts endure till they are laid
By age in earth; her days and pleasures were
Brief but delightful-such as had not stay'd
Long with her destiny; but she sleeps well
By the sea-shore, whereon she loved to dwell.

LXXII.

That isle is now all desolate and bare,

Its dwellings down, its tenants pass'd away: None but her own and father's grave is there, And nothing outward tells of human clay: Ye could not know where lies a thing so fair,

No stone is there to show, no tongue to say What was: no dirge, except the hollow sea's, Mourns o'er the beauty of the Cyclades.

LXXIII.

But many a Greek maid in a loving song
Sighs o'er her name; and many an islander
With her sire's story makes the night less long.
Valour was his, and beauty dwelt with her:
If she loved rashly, her life paid for wrong—
A heavy price must all pay who thus err,
In some shape; let none think to fly the danger,
For soon or late Love is his own avenger.

CAIN AND LUCIFER IN THE ABYSS

OF SPACE

(ACT II., SCENE I., OF 'CAIN,' 1821)

Cain. I tread on air, and sink not; yet I fear To sink.

Lucifer. Have faith in me, and thou shalt be Borne on the air, of which I am the prince. Cain. Can I do so without impiety?

Lucifer. Believe-and sink not! doubt-and perish!

thus

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 deem ΙΟ
Evil or good what is proclaimed 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

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

Lucifer.

Dost thou not recognize

The dust which formed your father?

Cain.

Can it be?

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Yon small blue circle, swinging in far ether,

With an inferior circlet near it still,

Which looks like that which lit our earthly night
Is this our Paradise? Where are its walls,

And they who guard them?

Lucifer.

Of Paradise.

Cain.

Point me out the site

How should I? As we move

Like sunbeams onward, it grows small and smaller,
And as it waxes little, and then less,

Gathers a halo round it, like the light

Which shone the roundest of the stars, when I

Beheld them from the skirts of Paradise:

Methinks they both, as we recede from them,
Appear to join the innumerable stars

Which are around us; and, as we move on,
Increase their myriads.

Lucifer.

And if there should be

Worlds greater than thine own, inhabited

By greater things, and they themselves far more
In number than the dust of thy dull earth,

Though multiplied to animated atoms,

All living, and all doom'd to death, and wretched,
What wouldst thou think?

Cain.

Which knew such things.

Lucifer.

I should be proud of thought

But if that high thought were 50

Link'd to a servile mass of matter, and

Knowing such things, aspiring to such things,

And science still beyond them, were chain'd down

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.

Lucifer.

Thou canst not

The Other

All die-there is what must survive.
Cain.

Spake not of this unto my father, when

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.

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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

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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.

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ΣΤΟ