CAIN.

Cain. Are ye happy?

Lucifer. We are mighty.

Cain. Are ye happy ?

Lucifer. No; art thou?

Cain. How should I be so ? Look on me!

Lucifer. Poor clay,

And thou pretendest to be wretched ! Thou!

Cain. 1 am:—and thou, with aft thy might, whatart thou ?

Lucifer. One who aspired to be what ma.de thee,and

Would not have made thee what thou art.

Cain. Ah!

Thou look’st almost a god; and-—

Lucifer. I aui none:

And having failed to be one, would be noughtSave what £ am. He conquer'd; let him reign!

Cain. Who ?

Lucifer. Thy sire’s Maker, and the earth's.

Coin. And heaven's,

And all that in them is. So I have heardHis seraphs sing; and so my father saitn.

Lucifer. They say—what they must sing and say,on pain

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 inHis everlasting face, and tell Him, thatHis evil is not good I If He has made,

As He saith—which I know not, nor believe—

Hut, ff He made us—He cannot unmake:

We are immortal—nay, He’d have us so,

That He may torture:—let Him! He is great—

Hut, in His greatness, is no happier thanW e in our conflict! Goodness would not make IEvil; and what else hath. He mode ? But let HimSit on His vast and solitary throne,

Creating worlds, to make eternity

Less burthensome to His immense existence

And unparticipated solitude!

Let Him crowd orb on orb: He is aloneIndefinite indissoluble tyrant!

Could He but crush Himself, ’twere the best boonHe ever granted: but, let Him reign ou,

And multiply Himself in misery!spirits and men, at least we sympathize—

And. suffering in concert, make our pangs,Innumerable, more endurable,

Hy the unbounded sympathy of all—

With all! But He! so wretched in His height,

restless in his wretchedness, must stillCreate, and recreat e

Cain. Thou speak’st to me of things which longhave swum

jn visions through my thought: I never couldReconcile what I saw with what I heard.

•dy father and my mother talk to mo

serpents, and of fruits and trees: I seeFhe gates of what they call their Paradiseguarded by flery-sworded cherubim,

Which shut them out, and me: I feel the weightCf daily toil and constant thought: I lookAround a world where I seem nothing, withthoughts which arise within me. as if theyCould master all things:—but I thought aloneThis misery was mine. —My father isx ^-nicd down: my mother has forgot the mind£lhich made her thirst for knowledge at the riskvff an eternal curse :my brother isA watching shepherd boy, who offers up

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The firstlings of the flock to Him who bidsThe earth yield nothing to ns without sweat;

My sister Zillah sings an earlier hymnThan the birds’ matins; and my Adah, myOw*n and beloved, she, too, understands notThe mind which overwhelms me: never tillNow met I aught to sympathise with me.

’Tis well—I rather would consort with spirits.Lucifer . And hadst thou not been lit by thineown soul

For such companionship, I would not nowHave stood before thee as I am: a serpentHad been enough to charm ye, as before.

Cain. Ah! didst thou tempt my mother?

Lucifer. I tempt none,

Save with the truth; was not the tree, the treeOf knowledge ? and was not the tree of lifeStill fruitful ? Did 1 bid her pluck them not ? .

Did I plant things prohibited withinThe reach of beings innocent, and curiousBy their own innocence? I would have made yeGods ; and even He who thrust ye forth, so thrus(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 whoheard them,

In thunder.

Lucifer. Then who was the demon ? HeWho would not let yo live, or he who wouldHave made ye live for ever in the joyAnd power of knowledge ?

Cain. Would they had snatch’d both

The fruits, or neither!

Lucifer . One is yours already;

The other may be still.

Cain. How so?

Lucifer. p,y being

Yourselves, in your resistance. Nothing canQuench the mind, if the mind will be itselfAnd centre of surrounding things—’tis madeTo sway.

Cain. But didst thou tempt my parents ?

Lucifer. I ?

Poor clay! what should I tempt them for, or how ?Cain. They say the serpent was a spiritLucifer. Who

Saith that ? It is not written so on highThe proud One will not so far falsify,

Though man’s vast fears and little vanityWould make him cast upon the spiritual natureHis own low failing. The snake was the snake—No more: and yet not less than those he tempted,In nature being earth also— more in wisdom,

Since he could overcome them, and foreknewThe knowledge fatal to their narrow joys.

Think’st thou I’d take the shape of things thatdie?

Cain. But the thing had a demon ?

Lucifer . He but woke oneIn those he spake to with his forky tongue.

I tell thee that the serpent was no moreThan a mere serpent: ask the cherubimWho guard the tempting tree. When thousandages

Have roll’d o’er your dead ashes, and your seed's.The seed of the then world may thus arrayTheir earliest fault in fable, and attributeTo me a shape I scorn, as I scorn allThat bows to Him, who made things but to bendBefore His sullen, sole eternity;

But we, who see the truth, must speak it Thy