Cain.

What immortal part?

This has not been reveal'd: the tree of life
Was withheld from us by my father's folly,
While that of knowledge, by my mother's haste,
Was pluck'd too soon; and all the fruit is death!
Lucifer. They have deceived thee; thou shalt live.
Cain.
I live,

But live to die: and, living, see nothing

To make death hateful, save an innate clinging,
A loathsome, and yet all invincible

Instinct of life, which I abhor, as I

Despise myself, yet cannot overcome—
And so I live. Would I had never lived!

[not

Lucifer. Thou livest, and must live for ever: think

The earth, which is thine outward cov'ring, is
Existence-it will cease, and thou wilt be

No less than thou art now.

Cain.

No more?

No less! and why

Lucifer. It may be thou shalt be as we.

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

Lucifer.

And thou pretendest to be wretched! Thou!
Cain. I am:-and thou, with all thy might, what

art thou?

Poor clay!

Lucifer. One who aspired to be what made thee, and Would not have made thee what thou art.

Cain.

Thou look'st almost a god; and

Lucifer.

Ah!

I am none:

And having fail'd to be one, would be nought
Save what I am. He conquer'd; let him reign!
Cain. Who?

Lucifer.
Cain.

Thy sire's Maker, and the earth's.
And heaven's,

And all that in them is. So I have heard

His seraphs sing; and so my father saith.

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—(1)
Souls who dare look the Omnipotent tyrant in
His everlasting face, and tell him that
His evil is not good! If he has made,

As he saith-which I know not, nor believe--
But, if he made us - he cannot unmake:
We are immortal!-nay, he'd have us so,
That he may torture:-let him! He is great-

(1) [In this long dialogue, the tempter tells Cain (who is thus far supposed to be ignorant of the fact) that the soul is immortal, and that "souls who dare use their immortality" are condemned by God to be wretched everlastingly. This sentiment, which is the pervading moral (if we may call it so) of the play, is developed in the lines which follow. - HEBER.]

"There is nothing against the immortality of the soul in Cain' that I recollect. I hold no such opinions; — but, in a drama, the first rebel and the first murderer must be made to talk according to their characters."— B. Letters.

But, in his greatness, is no happier than

We in our conflict! Goodness would not make
Evil; and what else hath he made? But let him

Sit 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 alone

Indefinite, indissoluble tyrant ;(')

Could he but crush himself, 't were the best boon

He ever granted: but let him reign on,

And multiply himself in misery!

Spirits and Men, at least we sympathise
And, suffering in concert, make our pangs
Innumerable, more endurable,

By the unbounded sympathy of all

With all! But He! so wretched in his height,
So restless in his wretchedness, must still

Cain. Thou speak'st to me of things which long have swum

In visions through my thought: I never could
Reconcile what I saw with what I heard.

(1) [The poet rises to the sublime in making Lucifer first inspire Cain with the knowledge of his immortality—a portion of truth which hath the efficacy of falsehood upon the victim; for Cain, feeling himself already unhappy, knowing that his being cannot be abridged, has the less scruple to desire to be as Lucifer, " mighty." The whole of this speech is truly satanic; a daring and dreadful description given by everlasting despair of the Deity. GALT.]

(2) [In MS." Create, and re-create- perhaps he'll make

One day a Son unto himself - as he
Gave you a father and if he so doth,
Mark me! that Son will be a sacrifice!"]

My father and my mother talk to me

Of serpents, and of fruits and trees: I see
The gates of what they call their Paradise
Guarded by fiery-sworded cherubim,

Which shut them out, and me: I feel the weight
Of daily toil, and constant thought: I look
Around a world where I seem nothing, with
Thoughts which arise within me, as if they
Could master all things- but I thought alone
This misery was mine.-My father is
Tamed down; my mother has forgot the mind
Which made her thirst for knowledge at the risk
Of an eternal curse; my brother is

A watching shepherd boy, who offers up
The firstlings of the flock to him who bids
The earth yield nothing to us without sweat;
My sister Zillah sings an earlier hymn
Than the birds' matins; and my Adah, my
Own and beloved, she, too, understands not
The mind which overwhelms me: never till
Now met I aught to sympathise with me.
'Tis well-I rather would consort with spirits.
Lucifer. And hadst thou not been fit by thine own
soul

For such companionship, I would not now
Have stood before thee as I am: a serpent
Had been enough to charm ye, as before. (1)
Cain. Ah! didst thou tempt my mother?
Lucifer.
I tempt none,

(1) [MS." Have stood before thee as I am; but chosen The serpent's charming symbol, as before."]

Save with the truth: was not the tree, the tree
Of knowledge? and was not the tree of life
Still fruitful? (1) Did I bid her pluck them not?
Did I plant things prohibited within

The reach of beings innocent, and curious

By their own innocence ? (2) I would have made ye Gods; and even He who thrust ye forth, so thrust 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 who heard them,

In thunder.

Lucifer. Then who was the demon? He
Who would not let ye live, or he who would
Have made ye live for ever in the joy
And power of knowledge?

(1) [The tree of life was doubtless a material tree, producing material fruit, proper as such for the nourishment of the body; but was it not also set apart to be partaken of as a symbol or sacrament of that celestial principle which nourishes the soul to immortality?-BISHOP HORNE.]

(2) [The Eclectic reviewer, we believe the late Robert Hall, says, — "A more deadly sentiment, a more insidious falsehood, than is conveyed in these words, could not be injected into the youthful mind by the Author of Evil. Innocence is not the cause of curiosity, but has, in every stage of society, been its victim. Curiosity has ruined greater num bers than any other passion, and as, in its incipient actings, it is the most dangerous foe of innocence, so, when it becomes a passion, it is only fed by guilt. Innocence, indeed, is gone, when desire has conceived the sin. Cain, in this drama, is made, like the Faust of Goethe, to be the victim of curiosity; and a fine moral might have been deduced from it."- Dr. Johnson, on the contrary, says, "A generous and elevated mind is distinguished by nothing more certainly than by an eminent degree of curiosity. This passion is, perhaps, regularly heightened in proportion as the powers of the mind are elevated and enlarged. Curiosity is the thirst of the soul; it inflames and torments us, and makes us taste every thing with joy, however otherwise insipid, by which it may be quenched."― E.]