Of glorious azure which floats on beyond us,

Which looks like water, and which I should deem

The river which flows out of Paradise

Past my own dwelling, but that it is bankless

And boundless and of an ethereal hue

What is it?

LUCIFER.

There is still some such on earth,

Although inferior, and thy children shall
Dwell near it-'tis the fantasm of an ocean.

CAIN.

'Tis like another world; a liquid sun-
And those inordinate creatures sporting o'er
Its shining surface?

Serpent, which rears his dripping mane and vasty Head ten times higher than the haughtiest cedar Forth from the abyss, looking as he could coil Himself around the orbs we lately look'd on

Is he not of the kind which bask'd beneath

The tree in Eden?

LUCIFER.

Eve, thy mother, best

Can tell what shape of serpent tempted her.

Many of the same kind (at least so call'd),
But never that precisely which persuaded
The fatal fruit, nor even of the same aspect.

LUCIFER.

Your father saw him not?

CAIN.

No: 'twas my

mother

Who tempted him-she tempted by the serpent.

LUCIFER.

Good man! whene'er thy wife, or thy sons' wives Tempt thee or them to aught that's new or strange, Be sure thou see'st first who hath tempted them.

CAIN.

Thy precept comes too late: there is no more
For serpents to tempt woman to.

LUCIFER.

But there

Are some things still which woman may tempt

man to,

And man tempt woman:-let thy sons look to it! My counsel is a kind one; for 'tis even

Given chiefly at my own expense: 'tis true, "Twill not be follow'd, so there's little lost.

I understand not this.

CAIN.

LUCIFER.

The happier thou!

Thy world and thou are still too young! Thou

thinkest

Thyself most wicked and unhappy: is it

Not so?

CAIN.

For crime I know not; but for pain,

I have felt much.

LUCIFER.

First-born of the first man!

Thy present state of sin-and thou art evil,

Of sorrow-and thou sufferest, are both Eden
In all its innocence compared to what.
Thou shortly may'st be; and that state again,
In its redoubled wretchedness, a Paradise
To what thy sons' sons' sons, accumulating
In generations like to dust (which they
In fact but add to), shall endure and do.-
Now let us back to earth!

Then

CAIN.

my father's God did well

When he prohibited the fatal tree.

LUCIFER.

But had done better in not planting it.

But ignorance of evil doth not save

From evil; it must still roll on the same,

A part of all things.

CAIN.

Not of all things. No:

I'll not believe it-for I thirst for good.

LUCIFER.

And who and what doth not?

Who covets evil

For its own bitter sake?-None-nothing! 'tis

The leaven of all life and lifelessness.

CAIN.

Within those glorious orbs which we behold,
Distant and dazzling, and innumerable,
Ere we came down into this phantom realm,
Ill cannot come; they are too beautiful.

LUCIFER.

Thou hast seen them from afar.

CAIN.

And what of that?

Distance can but diminish glory—they

When nearer must be more ineffable.

LUCIFER.

Approach the things of earth most beautiful,
And judge their beauty near.