_Lucifer_. Why?
_Cain_. To offer up With Abel on an altar.
_Lucifer_. Said"st thou not Thou ne"er hadst bent to him who made thee?
_Cain_. Yes-- But Abel"s earnest prayer has wrought upon me; The offering is more his than mine--and Adah----
_Lucifer_. Why dost thou hesitate?
_Cain_. She is my sister, 330 Born on the same day, of the same womb; and She wrung from me, with tears, this promise; and Rather than see her weep, I would, methinks, Bear all--and worship aught.
_Lucifer_. Then follow me!
_Cain_. I will.
_Enter_ ADAH.
_Adah_. My brother, I have come for thee; It is our hour of rest and joy--and we Have less without thee. Thou hast laboured not This morn; but I have done thy task: the fruits Are ripe, and glowing as the light which ripens: Come away.
_Cain_. Seest thou not?
_Adah_. I see an angel; 340 We have seen many: will he share our hour Of rest?--he is welcome.
_Cain_. But he is not like The angels we have seen.
_Adah_. Are there, then, others?
But he is welcome, as they were: they deigned To be our guests--will he?
_Cain_ (_to Lucifer_). Wilt thou?
_Lucifer_. I ask Thee to be mine.
_Cain_. I must away with him.
_Adah_. And leave us?
_Cain_. Aye.
_Adah_. And _me_?
_Cain_. Beloved Adah!
_Adah_. Let me go with thee.
_Lucifer_. No, she must not.
_Adah_. Who Art thou that steppest between heart and heart?
_Cain_. He is a G.o.d.
_Adah_. How know"st thou?
_Cain_. He speaks like 350 A G.o.d.
_Adah_. So did the Serpent, and it lied.
_Lucifer_. Thou errest, Adah!--was not the Tree that Of Knowledge?
_Adah_. Aye--to our eternal sorrow.
_Lucifer_. And yet that grief is knowledge--so he lied not: And if he did betray you, "twas with Truth; And Truth in its own essence cannot be But good.
_Adah_. But all we know of it has gathered Evil on ill; expulsion from our home, And dread, and toil, and sweat, and heaviness; Remorse of that which was--and hope of that 360 Which cometh not. Cain! walk not with this Spirit.
Bear with what we have borne, and love me--I Love thee.
_Lucifer_. More than thy mother, and thy sire?
_Adah_. I do. Is that a sin, too?
_Lucifer_. No, not yet; It one day will be in your children.
_Adah_. What!
Must not my daughter love her brother Enoch?
_Lucifer_. Not as thou lovest Cain.
_Adah_. Oh, my G.o.d!
Shall they not love and bring forth things that love Out of their love? have they not drawn their milk Out of this bosom? was not he, their father, 370 Born of the same sole womb,[105] in the same hour With me? did we not love each other? and In multiplying our being multiply Things which will love each other as we love Them?--And as I love thee, my Cain! go not Forth with this spirit; he is not of ours.
_Lucifer_. The sin I speak of is not of my making, And cannot be a sin in you--whate"er It seem in those who will replace ye in Mortality[106].
_Adah_. What is the sin which is not 380 Sin in itself? Can circ.u.mstance make sin Or virtue?--if it doth, we are the slaves Of----
_Lucifer_. Higher things than ye are slaves: and higher Than them or ye would be so, did they not Prefer an independency of torture To the smooth agonies of adulation, In hymns and harpings, and self-seeking prayers, To that which is omnipotent, because It is omnipotent, and not from love, But terror and self-hope.
_Adah_. Omnipotence 390 Must be all goodness.
_Lucifer_. Was it so in Eden?
_Adah_. Fiend! tempt me not with beauty; thou art fairer Than was the Serpent, and as false.
_Lucifer_. As true.
Ask Eve, your mother: bears she not the knowledge Of good and evil?
_Adah_. Oh, my mother! thou Hast plucked a fruit more fatal to thine offspring Than to thyself; thou at the least hast pa.s.sed Thy youth in Paradise, in innocent And happy intercourse with happy spirits: But we, thy children, ignorant of Eden, 400 Are girt about by demons, who a.s.sume The words of G.o.d, and tempt us with our own Dissatisfied and curious thoughts--as thou Wert worked on by the snake, in thy most flushed And heedless, harmless wantonness of bliss.
I cannot answer this immortal thing Which stands before me; I cannot abhor him; I look upon him with a pleasing fear, And yet I fly not from him: in his eye There is a fastening attraction which 410 Fixes my fluttering eyes on his; my heart Beats quick; he awes me, and yet draws me near, Nearer and nearer:--Cain--Cain--save me from him!
_Cain_. What dreads my Adah? This is no ill spirit.