No More Learning

Why should I fear him more than other spirits,
Whom I see daily wave their fiery swords
Before the gates round which I linger oft,
In Twilight's hour, to catch a glimpse of those
Gardens which are my just inheritance,
Ere the night closes o'er the inhibited walls
And the immortal trees which overtop
The Cherubim-defended battlements? 90
If I shrink not from these, the fire-armed angels,
Why should I quail from him who now approaches?
Yet--he seems mightier far than them, nor less
Beauteous, and yet not all as beautiful
As he hath been, and might be: sorrow seems
Half of his immortality. [97] And is it
So? and can aught grieve save Humanity?
He cometh.

_Enter_ LUCIFER.

_Lucifer_. Mortal!

_Cain_. Spirit, who art thou?

_Lucifer_. Master of spirits.

_Cain_. And being so, canst thou
Leave them, and walk with dust?

_Lucifer_. I know the thoughts 100
Of dust, and feel for it, and with you.

_Cain_. How!
You know my thoughts?

_Lucifer_. They are the thoughts of all
Worthy of thought;--'tis your immortal part[98]
Which speaks within you.

_Cain_. What immortal part?
This has not been revealed: the Tree of Life
Was withheld from us by my father's folly,
While that of Knowledge, by my mother's haste,
Was plucked 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 no thing 110
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!

_Lucifer_. Thou livest--and must live for ever. Think not
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 _less_! and why
No more?

_Lucifer_. It may be thou shalt be as we. 120

_Cain_. And ye?

_Lucifer_. Are everlasting.

_Cain_. Are ye happy?

_Lucifer_. We are mighty.

_Cain_. Are ye happy?

_Lucifer_. No: art thou?

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

_Lucifer_. Poor clay!
And thou pretendest to be wretched! Thou!

_Cain_. I am:--and thou, with all thy might, what art thou?

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

_Cain_. Ah!
Thou look'st almost a god; and----

_Lucifer_. I am none:
And having failed to be one, would be nought
Save what I am. He conquered; let him reign! 130

_Cain_. Who?

_Lucifer_. Thy Sire's maker--and the Earth's.

_Cain_. 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--
Souls who dare look the Omnipotent tyrant in
His everlasting face, and tell him that
His evil is not good! If he has made, 140
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--
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 150
And unparticipated solitude;[99]
Let him crowd orb on orb: he is alone
Indefinite, Indissoluble Tyrant;
Could he but crush himself, 'twere 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 160
With all! But _He_! so wretched in his height,
So restless in his wretchedness, must still
Create, and re-create--perhaps he'll make[100]
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!

_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.
My father and my mother talk to me 170
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 180
Which made her thirst for knowledge at the risk
Of an eternal curse; my brother is
A watching shepherd boy,[101] who offers up
The firstlings of the flock to him who bids
The earth yield nothing to us without sweat;[by]
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. 190
'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. [bz]

_Cain_. Ah! didst _thou_ tempt my mother?

_Lucifer_. I tempt none,
Save with the truth: was not the Tree, the Tree
Of Knowledge? and was not the Tree of Life
Still fruitful? Did _I_ bid her pluck them not?
Did I plant things prohibited within 200
The reach of beings innocent, and curious
By their own innocence? 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?

_Cain_. Would they had snatched both 210
The fruits, or neither!

_Lucifer_. One is yours already,
The other may be still.

_Cain_. How so?

_Lucifer_. By being
Yourselves, in your resistance. Nothing can
Quench the mind, if the mind will be itself
And centre of surrounding things--'tis made
To sway.

_Cain_. But didst thou tempt my parents?

_Lucifer_. I?
Poor clay--what should I tempt them for, or how?

_Cain_. They say the Serpent was a spirit.

_Lucifer_. Who
Saith that? It is not written so on high:
The proud One will not so far falsify, 220
Though man's vast fears and little vanity
Would make him cast upon the spiritual nature
His own low failing. The snake _was_ the snake--
No more;[102] and yet not less than those he tempted,
In nature being earth also--_more_ in _wisdom_,
Since he could overcome them, and foreknew
The knowledge fatal to their narrow joys.
Think'st thou I'd take the shape of things that die?

_Cain_. But the thing had a demon?

_Lucifer_. He but woke one
In those he spake to with his forky tongue. 230
I tell thee that the Serpent was no more
Than a mere serpent: ask the Cherubim
Who guard the tempting tree. When thousand ages
Have rolled o'er your dead ashes, and your seed's,
The seed of the then world may thus array
Their earliest fault in fable, and attribute
To me a shape I scorn, as I scorn all
That bows to him, who made things but to bend
Before his sullen, sole eternity;
But we, who see the truth, must speak it. Thy 240
Fond parents listened to a creeping thing,
And fell. For what should spirits tempt them? What
Was there to envy in the narrow bounds
Of Paradise, that spirits who pervade
Space----but I speak to thee of what thou know'st not,
With all thy Tree of Knowledge.

_Cain_. But thou canst not
Speak aught of Knowledge which I would not know,
And do not thirst to know, and bear a mind
To know.

_Lucifer_. And heart to look on?

_Cain_. Be it proved.

_Lucifer_. Darest thou look on Death?

_Cain_. He has not yet 250
Been seen.

_Lucifer_. But must be undergone.

_Cain_. My father
Says he is something dreadful, and my mother
Weeps when he's named; and Abel lifts his eyes
To Heaven, and Zillah casts hers to the earth,
And sighs a prayer; and Adah looks on me,
And speaks not.

_Lucifer_. And thou?

_Cain_. Thoughts unspeakable
Crowd in my breast to burning, when I hear
Of this almighty Death, who is, it seems,
Inevitable. Could I wrestle with him?
I wrestled with the lion, when a boy, 260
In play, till he ran roaring from my gripe.

_Lucifer_. It has no shape; but will absorb all things
That bear the form of earth-born being.

_Cain_. Ah!
I thought it was a being: who could do
Such evil things to beings save a being?

_Lucifer_. Ask the Destroyer.

_Cain_. Who?

_Lucifer_. The Maker--Call him
Which name thou wilt: he makes but to destroy.

_Cain_. I knew not that, yet thought it, since I heard
Of Death: although I know not what it is--
Yet it seems horrible. I have looked out 270
In the vast desolate night in search of him;
And when I saw gigantic shadows in
The umbrage of the walls of Eden, chequered
By the far-flashing of the Cherubs' swords,
I watched for what I thought his coming; for
With fear rose longing in my heart to know
What 'twas which shook us all--but nothing came.
And then I turned my weary eyes from off
Our native and forbidden Paradise,
Up to the lights above us, in the azure, 280
Which are so beautiful: shall they, too, die?

_Lucifer_. Perhaps--but long outlive both thine and thee.

_Cain_. I'm glad of that: I would not have them die--
They are so lovely. What is Death? I fear,
I feel, it is a dreadful thing; but what,
I cannot compass: 'tis denounced against us,
Both them who sinned and sinned not, as an ill--
What ill?

_Lucifer_. To be resolved into the earth.

_Cain_. But shall I know it?

_Lucifer_. As I know not death,
I cannot answer. [103]

_Cain_. Were I quiet earth, 290
That were no evil: would I ne'er had been
Aught else but dust!

_Lucifer_. That is a _grovelling_ wish,
Less than thy father's--for he wished to know!

_Cain_. But not to live--or wherefore plucked he not
The Life-tree?

_Lucifer_. He was hindered.

_Cain_. Deadly error!
Not to snatch first that fruit:--but ere he plucked
The knowledge, he was ignorant of Death.
Alas!
I scarcely now know what it is,
And yet I fear it--fear I know not what!

_Lucifer_. And I, who know all things, fear nothing; see 300
What is true knowledge.

_Cain_. Wilt thou teach me all?

_Lucifer_. Aye, upon one condition.

_Cain_. Name it.

_Lucifer_. That
Thou dost fall down and worship me--thy Lord.

_Cain_. Thou art not the Lord my father worships.

_Lucifer_. No.

_Cain_. His equal?

_Lucifer_. No;--I have nought in common with him!
Nor would: I would be aught above--beneath--
Aught save a sharer or a servant of
His power. I dwell apart; but I am great:--
Many there are who worship me, and more
Who shall--be thou amongst the first.

_Cain_. I never 310
As yet have bowed unto my father's God.
Although my brother Abel oft implores
That I would join with him in sacrifice:--
Why should I bow to thee?

_Lucifer_. Hast thou ne'er bowed
To him?

_Cain_. Have I not said it? --need I say it?
Could not thy mighty knowledge teach thee that?

_Lucifer_. He who bows not to him has bowed to me. [104]

_Cain_. But I will bend to neither.

_Lucifer_. Ne'er the less,
Thou art my worshipper; not worshipping
Him makes thee mine the same.

_Cain_. And what is that? 320

_Lucifer_. Thou'lt know here--and hereafter.

_Cain_. Let me but
Be taught the mystery of my being.

_Lucifer_. Follow
Where I will lead thee.

_Cain_. But I must retire
To till the earth--for I had promised----

_Lucifer_. What?

_Cain_. To cull some first-fruits.

_Lucifer_. Why?

_Cain_. To offer up
With Abel on an altar.

_Lucifer_. Said'st thou not
Thou ne'er hadst bent to him who made thee?

_Cain_. Yes--
But Abel's earnest prayer has wrought upon me;
The offering is more his than mine--and Adah----

_Lucifer_. Why dost thou hesitate?

_Cain_. She is my sister, 330
Born on the same day, of the same womb; and
She wrung from me, with tears, this promise; and
Rather than see her weep, I would, methinks,
Bear all--and worship aught.

_Lucifer_. Then follow me!

_Cain_. I will.

_Enter_ ADAH.

_Adah_. My brother, I have come for thee;
It is our hour of rest and joy--and we
Have less without thee. Thou hast laboured not
This morn; but I have done thy task: the fruits
Are ripe, and glowing as the light which ripens:
Come away.

_Cain_. Seest thou not?

_Adah_. I see an angel; 340
We have seen many: will he share our hour
Of rest? --he is welcome.

_Cain_. But he is not like
The angels we have seen.

_Adah_. Are there, then, others?
But he is welcome, as they were: they deigned
To be our guests--will he?

_Cain_ (_to Lucifer_). Wilt thou?

_Lucifer_. I ask
Thee to be mine.

_Cain_. I must away with him.

_Adah_. And leave us?

_Cain_. Aye.

_Adah_. And _me_?

_Cain_. Beloved Adah!

_Adah_. Let me go with thee.

_Lucifer_. No, she must not.

_Adah_. Who
Art thou that steppest between heart and heart?

_Cain_. He is a God.

_Adah_. How know'st thou?

_Cain_. He speaks like 350
A God.

_Adah_. So did the Serpent, and it lied.

_Lucifer_. Thou errest, Adah! --was not the Tree that
Of Knowledge?

_Adah_. Aye--to our eternal sorrow.

_Lucifer_. And yet that grief is knowledge--so he lied not:
And if he did betray you, 'twas with Truth;
And Truth in its own essence cannot be
But good.

_Adah_. But all we know of it has gathered
Evil on ill; expulsion from our home,
And dread, and toil, and sweat, and heaviness;
Remorse of that which was--and hope of that 360
Which cometh not. Cain! walk not with this Spirit.
Bear with what we have borne, and love me--I
Love thee.

_Lucifer_. More than thy mother, and thy sire?

_Adah_. I do. Is that a sin, too?

_Lucifer_. No, not yet;
It one day will be in your children.

_Adah_. What!
Must not my daughter love her brother Enoch?

_Lucifer_. Not as thou lovest Cain.

_Adah_. Oh, my God!
Shall they not love and bring forth things that love
Out of their love? have they not drawn their milk
Out of this bosom? was not he, their father, 370
Born of the same sole womb,[105] in the same hour
With me? did we not love each other? and
In multiplying our being multiply
Things which will love each other as we love
Them? --And as I love thee, my Cain! go not
Forth with this spirit; he is not of ours.

_Lucifer_. The sin I speak of is not of my making,
And cannot be a sin in you--whate'er
It seem in those who will replace ye in
Mortality[106].

_Adah_. What is the sin which is not 380
Sin in itself? Can circumstance make sin
Or virtue? --if it doth, we are the slaves
Of----

_Lucifer_. Higher things than ye are slaves: and higher
Than them or ye would be so, did they not
Prefer an independency of torture
To the smooth agonies of adulation,
In hymns and harpings, and self-seeking prayers,
To that which is omnipotent, because
It is omnipotent, and not from love,
But terror and self-hope.

_Adah_. Omnipotence 390
Must be all goodness.

_Lucifer_. Was it so in Eden?

_Adah_. Fiend! tempt me not with beauty; thou art fairer
Than was the Serpent, and as false.

_Lucifer_. As true.
Ask Eve, your mother: bears she not the knowledge
Of good and evil?

_Adah_. Oh, my mother! thou
Hast plucked a fruit more fatal to thine offspring
Than to thyself; thou at the least hast passed
Thy youth in Paradise, in innocent
And happy intercourse with happy spirits:
But we, thy children, ignorant of Eden, 400
Are girt about by demons, who assume
The words of God, and tempt us with our own
Dissatisfied and curious thoughts--as thou
Wert worked on by the snake, in thy most flushed
And heedless, harmless wantonness of bliss.
I cannot answer this immortal thing
Which stands before me; I cannot abhor him;
I look upon him with a pleasing fear,
And yet I fly not from him: in his eye
There is a fastening attraction which 410
Fixes my fluttering eyes on his; my heart
Beats quick; he awes me, and yet draws me near,
Nearer and nearer:--Cain--Cain--save me from him!

_Cain_. What dreads my Adah? This is no ill spirit.

_Adah_. He is not God--nor God's: I have beheld
The Cherubs and the Seraphs; he looks not
Like them.

_Cain_. But there are spirits loftier still--
The archangels.

_Lucifer_. And still loftier than the archangels.

_Adah_. Aye--but not blessed.

_Lucifer_. If the blessedness
Consists in slavery--no.

_Adah_. I have heard it said, 420
The Seraphs _love most_--Cherubim _know most_[107]--
And this should be a Cherub--since he loves not.

_Lucifer_. And if the higher knowledge quenches love,
What must _he be_ you cannot love when known? [ca]
Since the all-knowing Cherubim love least,
The Seraphs' love can be but ignorance:
That they are not compatible, the doom
Of thy fond parents, for their daring, proves.
Choose betwixt Love and Knowledge--since there is
No other choice: your sire hath chosen already: 430
His worship is but fear.

_Adah_. Oh, Cain! choose Love.

_Cain_. For thee, my Adah, I choose not--It was
Born with me--but I love nought else.

_Adah_. Our parents?

_Cain_. Did they love us when they snatched from the Tree
That which hath driven us all from Paradise?

_Adah_. We were not born then--and if we had been,
Should we not love them--and our children, Cain?

_Cain_. My little Enoch! and his lisping sister!
Could I but deem them happy, I would half
Forget----but it can never be forgotten 440
Through thrice a thousand generations! never
Shall men love the remembrance of the man
Who sowed the seed of evil and mankind
In the same hour! They plucked the tree of science
And sin--and, not content with their own sorrow,
Begot _me_--_thee_--and all the few that are,
And all the unnumbered and innumerable
Multitudes, millions, myriads, which may be,
To inherit agonies accumulated
By ages! --and _I_ must be sire of such things! 450
Thy beauty and thy love--my love and joy,
The rapturous moment and the placid hour,
All we love in our children and each other,
But lead them and ourselves through many years
Of sin and pain--or few, but still of sorrow,
Interchecked with an instant of brief pleasure,
To Death--the unknown! Methinks the Tree of Knowledge
Hath not fulfilled its promise:--if they sinned,
At least they ought to have known all things that are
Of knowledge--and the mystery of Death[cb]. 460
What do they know? --that they are miserable.