Lucifer. Art thou not nearer? Look back to thine

earth!

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

Of most innumerable lights.

Lucifer.

Cain. I cannot see it.

Lucifer.

Cain. That!-yonder!

Lucifer.

Cain.

120

Look there!.

Yet it sparkles still.

Yea.

And wilt thou tell me so?

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,

130

I dare behold? As yet thou hast shown nought

I dare not gaze on further.

Lucifer.

On, then, with me.

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.

150

To what was before thee.

Cain. Where dost thou lead me?
Lucifer.

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.

Lucifer. And so it shall be ever; but we will

Lucifer. Return! be sure: how else should death be

peopled?

Its present realm is thin to what it will be,

Through thee and thine.

Cain.

The clouds still open wide

And wider, and make widening circles round us.

Lucifer. Advance!

Cain.

Lucifer.

And thou!

Fear not-without me thou

[They disappear through the clouds.

Couldst not have gone beyond thy world. On! on!