Scene IV.
EARTH'S ABYSS.
LUCIFER .
The cleaving winds are passed, and darkness. Look
Upon the Vision opened!
CAIN .
Oh, thou Earth!
Wondrous thy hidden secrets. Images
Of glorious mould all indistinct and rent,
Lie heaped together, ruin on ruin hurled;
Things living with the dead, and they transformed
To shapes as strange and new; bright forms obscured,
And meaner decked in lustre not their own.
LUCIFER .
Earth's heart and pulses of vitality
Are shown to thee.
CAIN .
My senses are confused;
With multitudinous forms they cannot grasp.
Mine eyes are dazzled by the flames flashed forth
From yonder caves, where winds are heard, and waters
Rolling like thunders; whither do they lead?
LUCIFER .
To central Earth, filling her breast with life.
CAIN .
And the fire circling, serpent-like, those crags?
LUCIFER .
The vital principle infused through all,
Whose visible spirit, quickening Earth and Air,
Shall men adore as God, on altars throned,
Typed in the sun, and worshipped in the stars.
CAIN .
And these bared trunks, as of trees rent asunder,
But wrought from dazzling mould, traced o'er with forms
In ruin beautiful, what are they? Skulls
Lie scattered round their base, circled with stones
Bound round them, star-like, as in mockery?
LUCIFER .
The pillars of the dwellings of earth's kings,
And tombs of mountainous forms, built to impress
Substantial memories in hearts of men.
Thou see'st their crowns where men bowed down to them.
CAIN .
Where then was God?
LUCIFER .
They worshipped things they saw,
As symbols; man must body forth a form:
He cannot grasp the unseen; and thus he delved
Into earth's heart, and shaped from her bright dross
God, in his image formed: to him they knelt,
But, as they felt new passions ruling them,
They deified each impulse, moulding god's
From self-abasement. Strength oppressed and slew;
Each justified his actions by his faith,
And all had perished; but they joined and raised
A ruler o'er them: him they named a king,
With life and death the pillars of his throne.
He trod on human hearts and kindred claimed
With God, by desolating earth, and man
Believed him; but the end ordained of fires
Or waters, swept o'er their forewritten paths; —
Lo, here the monuments of what they were!
CAIN .
Alas to think of what they were and are!
My heart turns toward my kindred, those who lived
And loved, and life enjoyed, whose errings rose
From overflowing hearts, too weak to check
The tides that bore them on. And they who shared
Life with them, they who gave its purest joys, —
Women — passed dream-like all. O Death abhorred!
Unmasker of the hues that life enrobed
With beauty, which, if false, deluded us
To make us happier! What were life revealed
To its bared roots? the real thou see'st here;
Forms of decay, from which shall others shrink,
As we from these recoil. Degrader, thou
Of our aspiring being! feel'st thou joy
Changing the beautiful to forms like thine?
Thou art the duped; they yielded to the stroke,
Foiling thee ever in their birth renewed.
LUCIFER .
It is man's nature to embody thought;
Death is a shadow growing forth from fear,
Existent but in thee.
CAIN .
How? is not death
An evil?
LUCIFER .
Thou draw'st life and death from earth
Whereon thou tread'st, a portion of thyself,
Vitality that, changing, never dies.
As the star struck by mightier impulse sinks,
Germing forth other suns, as the tree casts
Seeds, rooting other trees, so life diffused
Wanders through space and generates new worlds.
CAIN .
What meeting elements moulded this form?
With feeling of the good and ill infused,
And consciousness of God? We turn to earth,
For He hath said — " dust shall to dust return!"
But who raised up from it this breathing form?
Who filled it with ethereal fire, and said,
Live, and aspire thus heavenward?" Who proclaimed
" Let there be light!" — when life awoke, and was?
LUCIFER .
Things in themselves eternal are unmade.
How may thy elemental life embrace
The uncreated and unchangeable,
Yet thou, while worlds have vanished, round thee crushed
With all their vast existence, durst look up
To question and to comprehend, thou thing
Of ashes!
CAIN .
I confess my nothingness;
Yet a faith dwells in me, though this clay perish,
A life exists within that cannot die;
This aspiration and the consciousness,
From whence its origin? —
LUCIFER .
In the desire,
Which is the hope, for an auguster life.
Deem'st thou the insect flitting in the starlight
Turns not towards those lights afar, but gives
That dim instinct the power? The shapes of earth
In thee are imaged as within the stream,
Till thou art portion of their life and joy.
How feel'st thou when the buoyant pulse depressed,
Leaves thee exhausted?
CAIN .
Weaker than before.
LUCIFER .
That feeling was the true, the other false,
Which shall elate thy sons, whose pride subdued
Shall be their punishment. They shall weigh earth,
Give nature laws, and God thy human form;
Till the mood varying, they shall bow before
Sun, stars, or brutes, or men beneath them, still
Through each changed phase of faith and disbelief,
Knowing themselves for liars.
CAIN .
Wherefore spake not
The Ineffable in manifest signs to man?
Why shouted not the stars, with thunder-voice,
" Thou art!" — earth echoing back to us the truth?
LUCIFER .
Thou hast work infinite before thee set,
To know thyself.
CAIN .
My human nature asks
But for repose to perfect happiness;
One sharing it, a being like myself,
To comprehend my thoughts and changeful moods
Of sorrow and of joy.
LUCIFER .
Repose dwells not
In mutabilities whose name is change.
Life is of moments, each a yearning; rest
To man were weariness; to thee it brought
Remembrances thou wouldst forget, remorse,
Doubt, and despair: a life of agonies
Were better than such state. Thy Ada loved thee;
Couldst thou not find repose thou seek'st in her?
CAIN .
She could not share my thoughts; I turned from her,
And mourned o'er ties I could not separate.
She lived my visible reproof; she was
My silent conscience, speaking more than words;
I looked on her appealing face, and felt
All that I had been, and could be no more.
LUCIFER .
Think'st thou, beholding others of a race
With knowledge blest to whom earth's forms are dim,
Thou couldst find rest?
CAIN .
Give me forgetfulness.
LUCIFER .
But if again, in thy changed state, thou sigh'st
For what thou mightest be and art not, blame
Nature, or thy Creator, which thou wilt:
The will is thine, durst thou essay the power.
CAIN .
Take me from hence! this gloom oppresses me;
The ardent hopes, again awaked, thrill through me,
Anticipating knowledge; dim are now
These images in their false lustre; all
Inferior to life that shall be mine!
Let me within a mightier sphere forget
The agony I have endured in this;
The consciousness of guilt I would have shunned,
Remembrances I would annihilate.
I shall be spirit all; methinks I feel
Wings raising me from earth.
LUCIFER .
Plumed by thy will,
Ascend with me; thy strength is in thy faith.
EARTH'S ABYSS.
LUCIFER .
The cleaving winds are passed, and darkness. Look
Upon the Vision opened!
CAIN .
Oh, thou Earth!
Wondrous thy hidden secrets. Images
Of glorious mould all indistinct and rent,
Lie heaped together, ruin on ruin hurled;
Things living with the dead, and they transformed
To shapes as strange and new; bright forms obscured,
And meaner decked in lustre not their own.
LUCIFER .
Earth's heart and pulses of vitality
Are shown to thee.
CAIN .
My senses are confused;
With multitudinous forms they cannot grasp.
Mine eyes are dazzled by the flames flashed forth
From yonder caves, where winds are heard, and waters
Rolling like thunders; whither do they lead?
LUCIFER .
To central Earth, filling her breast with life.
CAIN .
And the fire circling, serpent-like, those crags?
LUCIFER .
The vital principle infused through all,
Whose visible spirit, quickening Earth and Air,
Shall men adore as God, on altars throned,
Typed in the sun, and worshipped in the stars.
CAIN .
And these bared trunks, as of trees rent asunder,
But wrought from dazzling mould, traced o'er with forms
In ruin beautiful, what are they? Skulls
Lie scattered round their base, circled with stones
Bound round them, star-like, as in mockery?
LUCIFER .
The pillars of the dwellings of earth's kings,
And tombs of mountainous forms, built to impress
Substantial memories in hearts of men.
Thou see'st their crowns where men bowed down to them.
CAIN .
Where then was God?
LUCIFER .
They worshipped things they saw,
As symbols; man must body forth a form:
He cannot grasp the unseen; and thus he delved
Into earth's heart, and shaped from her bright dross
God, in his image formed: to him they knelt,
But, as they felt new passions ruling them,
They deified each impulse, moulding god's
From self-abasement. Strength oppressed and slew;
Each justified his actions by his faith,
And all had perished; but they joined and raised
A ruler o'er them: him they named a king,
With life and death the pillars of his throne.
He trod on human hearts and kindred claimed
With God, by desolating earth, and man
Believed him; but the end ordained of fires
Or waters, swept o'er their forewritten paths; —
Lo, here the monuments of what they were!
CAIN .
Alas to think of what they were and are!
My heart turns toward my kindred, those who lived
And loved, and life enjoyed, whose errings rose
From overflowing hearts, too weak to check
The tides that bore them on. And they who shared
Life with them, they who gave its purest joys, —
Women — passed dream-like all. O Death abhorred!
Unmasker of the hues that life enrobed
With beauty, which, if false, deluded us
To make us happier! What were life revealed
To its bared roots? the real thou see'st here;
Forms of decay, from which shall others shrink,
As we from these recoil. Degrader, thou
Of our aspiring being! feel'st thou joy
Changing the beautiful to forms like thine?
Thou art the duped; they yielded to the stroke,
Foiling thee ever in their birth renewed.
LUCIFER .
It is man's nature to embody thought;
Death is a shadow growing forth from fear,
Existent but in thee.
CAIN .
How? is not death
An evil?
LUCIFER .
Thou draw'st life and death from earth
Whereon thou tread'st, a portion of thyself,
Vitality that, changing, never dies.
As the star struck by mightier impulse sinks,
Germing forth other suns, as the tree casts
Seeds, rooting other trees, so life diffused
Wanders through space and generates new worlds.
CAIN .
What meeting elements moulded this form?
With feeling of the good and ill infused,
And consciousness of God? We turn to earth,
For He hath said — " dust shall to dust return!"
But who raised up from it this breathing form?
Who filled it with ethereal fire, and said,
Live, and aspire thus heavenward?" Who proclaimed
" Let there be light!" — when life awoke, and was?
LUCIFER .
Things in themselves eternal are unmade.
How may thy elemental life embrace
The uncreated and unchangeable,
Yet thou, while worlds have vanished, round thee crushed
With all their vast existence, durst look up
To question and to comprehend, thou thing
Of ashes!
CAIN .
I confess my nothingness;
Yet a faith dwells in me, though this clay perish,
A life exists within that cannot die;
This aspiration and the consciousness,
From whence its origin? —
LUCIFER .
In the desire,
Which is the hope, for an auguster life.
Deem'st thou the insect flitting in the starlight
Turns not towards those lights afar, but gives
That dim instinct the power? The shapes of earth
In thee are imaged as within the stream,
Till thou art portion of their life and joy.
How feel'st thou when the buoyant pulse depressed,
Leaves thee exhausted?
CAIN .
Weaker than before.
LUCIFER .
That feeling was the true, the other false,
Which shall elate thy sons, whose pride subdued
Shall be their punishment. They shall weigh earth,
Give nature laws, and God thy human form;
Till the mood varying, they shall bow before
Sun, stars, or brutes, or men beneath them, still
Through each changed phase of faith and disbelief,
Knowing themselves for liars.
CAIN .
Wherefore spake not
The Ineffable in manifest signs to man?
Why shouted not the stars, with thunder-voice,
" Thou art!" — earth echoing back to us the truth?
LUCIFER .
Thou hast work infinite before thee set,
To know thyself.
CAIN .
My human nature asks
But for repose to perfect happiness;
One sharing it, a being like myself,
To comprehend my thoughts and changeful moods
Of sorrow and of joy.
LUCIFER .
Repose dwells not
In mutabilities whose name is change.
Life is of moments, each a yearning; rest
To man were weariness; to thee it brought
Remembrances thou wouldst forget, remorse,
Doubt, and despair: a life of agonies
Were better than such state. Thy Ada loved thee;
Couldst thou not find repose thou seek'st in her?
CAIN .
She could not share my thoughts; I turned from her,
And mourned o'er ties I could not separate.
She lived my visible reproof; she was
My silent conscience, speaking more than words;
I looked on her appealing face, and felt
All that I had been, and could be no more.
LUCIFER .
Think'st thou, beholding others of a race
With knowledge blest to whom earth's forms are dim,
Thou couldst find rest?
CAIN .
Give me forgetfulness.
LUCIFER .
But if again, in thy changed state, thou sigh'st
For what thou mightest be and art not, blame
Nature, or thy Creator, which thou wilt:
The will is thine, durst thou essay the power.
CAIN .
Take me from hence! this gloom oppresses me;
The ardent hopes, again awaked, thrill through me,
Anticipating knowledge; dim are now
These images in their false lustre; all
Inferior to life that shall be mine!
Let me within a mightier sphere forget
The agony I have endured in this;
The consciousness of guilt I would have shunned,
Remembrances I would annihilate.
I shall be spirit all; methinks I feel
Wings raising me from earth.
LUCIFER .
Plumed by thy will,
Ascend with me; thy strength is in thy faith.
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