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ADAH.

In sooth return within an hour?

LUCIFER.

Will he

He shall.

With us acts are exempt from time, and we
Can crowd eternity into an hour,

Or stretch an hour into eternity:

We breathe not by a mortal measurement—
But that's a mystery. Cain, come on with me.

Will he return?

ADAH.

LUCIFER.

Ay, woman! he alone

Of mortals from that place (the first and last

Who shall return, save ONE)--shall come back to

thee

To make that silent and expectant world

As populous as this: at present there

Are few inhabitants.

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Thy God or Gods-there am I ; all things are
Divided with me; life and death-and time-
Eternity-and heaven and earth—and that
Which is not heaven nor earth, but peopled with
Those who once peopled or shall people both-
These are my realms! So that I do divide
His, and possess a kindom which is not
His. If I were not that which I have said,
Could I stand here? His angels are within
Your vision.

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If thou dost long for knowledge, I can satiate
That thirst: nor ask thee to partake of fruits
Which shall deprive thee of a single good
The conqueror has left thee.

CAIN.

Follow me.

Spirit, I have said it. [Exeunt LUCIFER and CAIN.

ADAH (follows, exclaiming)

Cain my brother! Cain!

ACT II.

SCENE I.

The Aby ss of Space.

CAIN.

I tread on air, and sink not; yet I fear

To sink.

LUCIFER.

Have faith in me, and thou shalt be Borne on the air, of which I am the prince.

CAIN.

Can I do so without impiety?

LUCIFER.

Believe-and sink not! doubt-and perish! thus
Would run the edict of the other God,

Who names me demon to his angels; they
Echo the sound to miserable things,

Which knowing nought beyond their shallow senses,
Worship the word which strikes their ear, and deem
Evil or good what is proclaim'd to them
In their abasement. I will have none such :
Worship or worship not, thou shalt behold

The worlds beyond thy little world, nor be
Amerced, for doubts beyond thy little life,
With torture of my dooming. There will come
An hour, when toss'd upon some water-drops,
"Believe in me,

A man shall say to a man,

And walk the waters ;" and the man shall walk
The billows and be safe. I will not say
Believe in me, as a conditional creed

To save thee; but fly with me o'er the gulf
Of space an equal flight, and I will show
What thou dar'st not deny, the history
Of past, and present, and of future worlds.

CAIN.

Oh, god, or demon, or whate'er thou art,
Is yon our earth?

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Yon small blue circle, swinging in far ether,

With an inferior circlet near it still,

Which looks like that which lit our earthly night?

Is this our Paradise? Where are its walls,
And they who guard them?

Of Paradise.

LUCIFER.

Point me out the site

CAIN.

How should I? As we move

Like sunbeams onward, it grows small and smaller, And as it waxes little, and then less,

Gathers a halo ronud it, like the light

Which shone the roundest of the stars, when I

Beheld them from the skirts of Paradise:

Methinks they both, as we recede from them,
Appear to join the innumerable stars

Which are around us; and, as we move on,
Increase their myriads.

LUCIFER.

And if there should be

Worlds greater than thine own, inhabited

By greater things, and they themselves far more In number than the dust of thy dull earth, Though multiplied to animated atoms,

All living, and all doom'd to death, and wretched, What wouldst thou think?

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