Scene III.
LUCIFER .
Arise from earth! —
CAIN .
What art thou?
LUCIFER .
Him thou call'st
The aching want thou feelest in thy heart.
CAIN .
How unlike art thou to the images
Of power we draw from earth! But thou in state
Imposest more; thou lookest like the clouds
In distance seen, when lightning-crested, folding
In their breasts buried thunders; on thy brow
Purpose inscrutable, but fixed as is —
LUCIFER .
Thy destiny, whereof I am the lord.
CAIN .
I could succumb to human fears, and fly;
But I stand rooted from the prescience felt
That from thee only may be given all
My spirit asks of knowledge.
LUCIFER .
Thou kneel'st not.
CAIN .
I kneel to none! —
LUCIFER .
How? hath he heard thee? art
Thou conscious of the present listening God?
CAIN .
Alas, no —
LUCIFER .
Where is he, the answerer?
Thou call'st on him in agony? I heard thee
Lamenting deeds ordained, accusing him
Who sanctioned or forbade not; how is he
The just One, if he visit crime on thee?
If to know him were your sought happiness,
Why art thou outcast?
CAIN
Thou deny'st his justice,
But not his being.
LUCIFER .
Conscious of my own
Am I; beyond it, nothing. Witness thine,
He gave thee life, if thou wilt have it so,
Forbade to know its mysteries.
CAIN .
Dost thou
Knowledge impart? what see our open eyes?
That we must die; hadst thou taught us the escape,
One step were gained toward immortality.
LUCIFER
I showed the evil and the antidote;
Illusion is not healthful happiness.
Seekest thou knowledge? or art thou content
With breath, given to renew debasing wants,
That make thee cling to thy frail life from fear
Of worse, the real. I raised the film; thou saw'st
Thou canst not flee from death, whose root is life,
But thou may'st cease to fear it in the strength
Of purpose that shall raise thee to ourselves.
CAIN .
If man creates a self-sustaining will,
May he not heavenward tend, and hope reward
Beyond our life for his endurance? thus
Becoming portion of yourselves?
LUCIFER .
The crown
Of knowledge self-created is her own;
We are; and death and change are states removed
From us, as dust from immortality.
CAIN .
Spirit! I know that I must die. I have seen
All- dreaded death, which, unseen, I could not
Shape forth from phantasy. I could not believe
That we full of abounding life, could die,
Nor deemed I God would sever those He joined,
Having in beauty made them; for I thought
That God was love, loving the things he made.
Yet, Spirit! though thou, immortal as thou art,
Didst tell me I should perish, that this voice,
Breathing my inmost thought must cease, this life
That sheds on forms of beauty lights they had not,
Sayest thou these shall pass into the dust,
I could not, if I would, believe thee.
LUCIFER .
Death,
Like night, shows marvels which the day conceals.
CAIN
What is the happiness that should be mine?
LUCIFER .
Partly thou hast attained it in the film
Withdrawn from thy now opened eyes, if they
Fear not to look upon the truth revealed.
CAIN .
Prove me.
LUCIFER .
Thou hast ceased to be of thine own kind.
Believing that thy human prayers availed,
Faint utterance of the same hopes and fears.
Such truths were told to Adam, but in vain,
Foiled by his wavering will.
CAIN .
They deem they are heard,
LUCIFER .
Hast thou been?
CAIN .
By thyself.
LUCIFER .
Offspring of earth!
Couldst thou compare created things to us,
That in ourselves partake the infinite,
Thy destiny were shadowed in our own.
But I was that I am; with consciousness
Of an existence filled by One unseen,
To whom all knelt, I rose and prayed to know Him
I called on the Ineffable; I invoked
The shadow of his presence to appear,
Until the shore of each remotest world,
The void of the unfathomable space,
Reverberating back in thunder, told
All there was solitude and vacancy!
I felt a living Being moved around me;
I asked a sign, as thou, and was unheard
CAIN .
Alas, that thirst of knowledge should exist,
Becoming evil that were god-like, else!
Alas, for life, which, ere we can arrange
Our thought confused, is quenched again in darkness!
CAIN .
Thus spake thy sire, ere tamed by life and time
Such is the eternal sigh of dust endued
With apprehensive life; the spirit and clay
War on each other till they separate.
One clings to earth and earthly tendencies;
The other shapes forth hopes it cannot reach,
And infinite desires, till in despair
It sinks as low as once in faith it soared.
Each clings to its frail tenement of dust,
Whose inward strife but hastens its decay.
CAIN .
Why were we not created to discern
Knowledge unclouded by our life?
LUCIFER .
Thou art
Potent in thy inferior sphere as are
The mightiest round thee; waste not in vain grief
The transient being; to ills felt, oppose
Thyself, sole adversary; rise above
Thy human nature, vanquisher of wants
And passions that had ruled, but for the will,
That, fire-like, on its altar sacrificed
Their baser clay to its grand element.
CAIN .
Thy words renew thoughts checked, yet unsuppressed;
But what are aspirations?
LUCIFER
Pour them forth.
CAIN .
Nay, think me not so all inferior.
Brighter thou art, and mightier; but, oh,
My spirit hath yearned with longings high as thine!
I never felt a boy; my thought outgrew
My form; I owned no human sympathies.
Earth's hues, and joyousness of passing shows,
Gladdened me not: I loved the wilderness;
I turned from sunshine to the rushing storm,
And felt myself reflected in its face.
I watched the thunder-clouds until I felt
Their desolation enter in my breast
I wandered restlessly to escape myself;
The void of heart not Ada's self could fill.
But, when night came, and hid familiar things,
And darkness brought the mystery I loved,
Because I felt it in my bosom, then
By the black rock, or in the cave, I stood
Happy, because alone; then, my heart opened
Its aching fullness.
I looked up to those
Almighty lights, those ever-living fires,
That through the firmament's calm depths roll on
In silence, which is melody heard by God
Who made them; then, and only then, I felt
My all-unbounded spirit had its range!
I saw what I could look upon for ever:
All even the thirst of knowledge was forgot.
It was enough to stand abstracted there,
And blend my being with infinity!
Oh! the intoxication of those hours,
The consciousness of an immortal life,
Or of deserving it, which then was faith!
I stood beside the trees that waved their blind
And feeling branches to and fro; mine eyes
Fixed on the lighted heavens till I feared
To break the silence, or invoke the Voice
I wound myself to hear; till from the hum
Of creeping things it grew — a phantasy!
I knelt down in the love and adoration
Of a full heart all opened to its God.
I called Him through the abysses of the night,
On Him the Maker, for a sound, a sign,
To tell me what I was, and for what end
Created; if I should behold Him, here,
Or, through the process of sublimer suns,
Fulfill my being in adoring Him.
I prostrated myself on earth and listened
Oh, how I sought the answer! Silence filled,
Even as a god, the void of earth and air,
Broken by my self-startling voice! — I felt
I rose unheard, my hope and faith were gone;
I sank to sleep in my all-useless tears.
Day broke; my thoughts were hidden; I became
A hypocrite to others, for I knelt,
And felt they would be heard while I was not.
They told me I should be content, nor seek
Knowledge that was rebellious pride, but walk
Blindly as they, I, knowing I was blind.
LUCIFER .
Comfort thyself, thou passionate child of dust!
Thou thing of aspirations, that dost strive
To ally thy human nature to divine.
Thou treadest but the paths of earlier men
Who walked anterior surfaces of earth;
They knew their search was vain, yet clung, like thee,
To an existence hopeless.
CAIN .
Have those breathed
Who found necessitous ill, unsought as loathed,
Yet with the consciousness of loving good,
All-impotent to reach it, and who felt
Remorse that died in hopelessness? Alas
For them! — yet happier, they that are at rest.
Where are their vestiges? I have beheld
On earth but ours.
LUCIFER .
Behold!
CAIN .
Earth parts asunder.
LUCIFER .
Descend thou with me, and fear nought.
CAIN .
Lead on.
LUCIFER .
Arise from earth! —
CAIN .
What art thou?
LUCIFER .
Him thou call'st
The aching want thou feelest in thy heart.
CAIN .
How unlike art thou to the images
Of power we draw from earth! But thou in state
Imposest more; thou lookest like the clouds
In distance seen, when lightning-crested, folding
In their breasts buried thunders; on thy brow
Purpose inscrutable, but fixed as is —
LUCIFER .
Thy destiny, whereof I am the lord.
CAIN .
I could succumb to human fears, and fly;
But I stand rooted from the prescience felt
That from thee only may be given all
My spirit asks of knowledge.
LUCIFER .
Thou kneel'st not.
CAIN .
I kneel to none! —
LUCIFER .
How? hath he heard thee? art
Thou conscious of the present listening God?
CAIN .
Alas, no —
LUCIFER .
Where is he, the answerer?
Thou call'st on him in agony? I heard thee
Lamenting deeds ordained, accusing him
Who sanctioned or forbade not; how is he
The just One, if he visit crime on thee?
If to know him were your sought happiness,
Why art thou outcast?
CAIN
Thou deny'st his justice,
But not his being.
LUCIFER .
Conscious of my own
Am I; beyond it, nothing. Witness thine,
He gave thee life, if thou wilt have it so,
Forbade to know its mysteries.
CAIN .
Dost thou
Knowledge impart? what see our open eyes?
That we must die; hadst thou taught us the escape,
One step were gained toward immortality.
LUCIFER
I showed the evil and the antidote;
Illusion is not healthful happiness.
Seekest thou knowledge? or art thou content
With breath, given to renew debasing wants,
That make thee cling to thy frail life from fear
Of worse, the real. I raised the film; thou saw'st
Thou canst not flee from death, whose root is life,
But thou may'st cease to fear it in the strength
Of purpose that shall raise thee to ourselves.
CAIN .
If man creates a self-sustaining will,
May he not heavenward tend, and hope reward
Beyond our life for his endurance? thus
Becoming portion of yourselves?
LUCIFER .
The crown
Of knowledge self-created is her own;
We are; and death and change are states removed
From us, as dust from immortality.
CAIN .
Spirit! I know that I must die. I have seen
All- dreaded death, which, unseen, I could not
Shape forth from phantasy. I could not believe
That we full of abounding life, could die,
Nor deemed I God would sever those He joined,
Having in beauty made them; for I thought
That God was love, loving the things he made.
Yet, Spirit! though thou, immortal as thou art,
Didst tell me I should perish, that this voice,
Breathing my inmost thought must cease, this life
That sheds on forms of beauty lights they had not,
Sayest thou these shall pass into the dust,
I could not, if I would, believe thee.
LUCIFER .
Death,
Like night, shows marvels which the day conceals.
CAIN
What is the happiness that should be mine?
LUCIFER .
Partly thou hast attained it in the film
Withdrawn from thy now opened eyes, if they
Fear not to look upon the truth revealed.
CAIN .
Prove me.
LUCIFER .
Thou hast ceased to be of thine own kind.
Believing that thy human prayers availed,
Faint utterance of the same hopes and fears.
Such truths were told to Adam, but in vain,
Foiled by his wavering will.
CAIN .
They deem they are heard,
LUCIFER .
Hast thou been?
CAIN .
By thyself.
LUCIFER .
Offspring of earth!
Couldst thou compare created things to us,
That in ourselves partake the infinite,
Thy destiny were shadowed in our own.
But I was that I am; with consciousness
Of an existence filled by One unseen,
To whom all knelt, I rose and prayed to know Him
I called on the Ineffable; I invoked
The shadow of his presence to appear,
Until the shore of each remotest world,
The void of the unfathomable space,
Reverberating back in thunder, told
All there was solitude and vacancy!
I felt a living Being moved around me;
I asked a sign, as thou, and was unheard
CAIN .
Alas, that thirst of knowledge should exist,
Becoming evil that were god-like, else!
Alas, for life, which, ere we can arrange
Our thought confused, is quenched again in darkness!
CAIN .
Thus spake thy sire, ere tamed by life and time
Such is the eternal sigh of dust endued
With apprehensive life; the spirit and clay
War on each other till they separate.
One clings to earth and earthly tendencies;
The other shapes forth hopes it cannot reach,
And infinite desires, till in despair
It sinks as low as once in faith it soared.
Each clings to its frail tenement of dust,
Whose inward strife but hastens its decay.
CAIN .
Why were we not created to discern
Knowledge unclouded by our life?
LUCIFER .
Thou art
Potent in thy inferior sphere as are
The mightiest round thee; waste not in vain grief
The transient being; to ills felt, oppose
Thyself, sole adversary; rise above
Thy human nature, vanquisher of wants
And passions that had ruled, but for the will,
That, fire-like, on its altar sacrificed
Their baser clay to its grand element.
CAIN .
Thy words renew thoughts checked, yet unsuppressed;
But what are aspirations?
LUCIFER
Pour them forth.
CAIN .
Nay, think me not so all inferior.
Brighter thou art, and mightier; but, oh,
My spirit hath yearned with longings high as thine!
I never felt a boy; my thought outgrew
My form; I owned no human sympathies.
Earth's hues, and joyousness of passing shows,
Gladdened me not: I loved the wilderness;
I turned from sunshine to the rushing storm,
And felt myself reflected in its face.
I watched the thunder-clouds until I felt
Their desolation enter in my breast
I wandered restlessly to escape myself;
The void of heart not Ada's self could fill.
But, when night came, and hid familiar things,
And darkness brought the mystery I loved,
Because I felt it in my bosom, then
By the black rock, or in the cave, I stood
Happy, because alone; then, my heart opened
Its aching fullness.
I looked up to those
Almighty lights, those ever-living fires,
That through the firmament's calm depths roll on
In silence, which is melody heard by God
Who made them; then, and only then, I felt
My all-unbounded spirit had its range!
I saw what I could look upon for ever:
All even the thirst of knowledge was forgot.
It was enough to stand abstracted there,
And blend my being with infinity!
Oh! the intoxication of those hours,
The consciousness of an immortal life,
Or of deserving it, which then was faith!
I stood beside the trees that waved their blind
And feeling branches to and fro; mine eyes
Fixed on the lighted heavens till I feared
To break the silence, or invoke the Voice
I wound myself to hear; till from the hum
Of creeping things it grew — a phantasy!
I knelt down in the love and adoration
Of a full heart all opened to its God.
I called Him through the abysses of the night,
On Him the Maker, for a sound, a sign,
To tell me what I was, and for what end
Created; if I should behold Him, here,
Or, through the process of sublimer suns,
Fulfill my being in adoring Him.
I prostrated myself on earth and listened
Oh, how I sought the answer! Silence filled,
Even as a god, the void of earth and air,
Broken by my self-startling voice! — I felt
I rose unheard, my hope and faith were gone;
I sank to sleep in my all-useless tears.
Day broke; my thoughts were hidden; I became
A hypocrite to others, for I knelt,
And felt they would be heard while I was not.
They told me I should be content, nor seek
Knowledge that was rebellious pride, but walk
Blindly as they, I, knowing I was blind.
LUCIFER .
Comfort thyself, thou passionate child of dust!
Thou thing of aspirations, that dost strive
To ally thy human nature to divine.
Thou treadest but the paths of earlier men
Who walked anterior surfaces of earth;
They knew their search was vain, yet clung, like thee,
To an existence hopeless.
CAIN .
Have those breathed
Who found necessitous ill, unsought as loathed,
Yet with the consciousness of loving good,
All-impotent to reach it, and who felt
Remorse that died in hopelessness? Alas
For them! — yet happier, they that are at rest.
Where are their vestiges? I have beheld
On earth but ours.
LUCIFER .
Behold!
CAIN .
Earth parts asunder.
LUCIFER .
Descend thou with me, and fear nought.
CAIN .
Lead on.
Reviews
No reviews yet.