No More Learning

Most ineradicable stains, for showing
(Not interfused! )
That brighter colours were the world's forgoing,
Than shall be used.
Hearken, oh hearken! ye shall hearken surely
For years and years,
The noise beside you, dripping coldly, purely,
Of spirits' tears.
The yearning to a beautiful denied you
Shall strain your powers;
Ideal sweetnesses shall overglide you,
Resumed from ours.
In all your music, our pathetic minor
Your ears shall cross;
And all good gifts shall mind you of diviner,
With sense of loss.
We shall be near you in your poet-languors
And wild extremes,
What time ye vex the desert with vain angers,
Or mock with dreams.
And when upon you, weary after roaming,
Death's seal is put,
By the foregone ye shall discern the coming,
Through eyelids shut.

_Spirits of the Trees. _
Hark! the Eden trees are stirring,
Soft and solemn in your hearing!
Oak and linden, palm and fir,
Tamarisk and juniper,
Each still throbbing in vibration
Since that crowning of creation
When the God-breath spake abroad,
_Let us make man like to God! _
And the pine stood quivering
As the awful word went by,
Like a vibrant music-string
Stretched from mountain-peak to sky;
And the platan did expand
Slow and gradual, branch and head;
And the cedar's strong black shade
Fluttered brokenly and grand:
Grove and wood were swept aslant
In emotion jubilant.

_Voice of the same, but softer. _
Which divine impulsion cleaves
In dim movements to the leaves
Dropt and lifted, dropt and lifted,
In the sunlight greenly sifted,--
In the sunlight and the moonlight
Greenly sifted through the trees.
Ever wave the Eden trees
In the nightlight and the noonlight,
With a ruffling of green branches
Shaded off to resonances,
Never stirred by rain or breeze.
Fare ye well, farewell!
The sylvan sounds, no longer audible,
Expire at Eden's door.
Each footstep of your treading
Treads out some murmur which ye heard before.
Farewell! the trees of Eden
Ye shall hear nevermore.

_River Spirits. _
Hark! the flow of the four rivers--
Hark the flow!
How the silence round you shivers,
While our voices through it go,
Cold and clear.

_A softer Voice. _
Think a little, while ye hear,
Of the banks
Where the willows and the deer
Crowd in intermingled ranks,
As if all would drink at once
Where the living water runs! --
Of the fishes' golden edges
Flashing in and out the sedges;
Of the swans on silver thrones,
Floating down the winding streams
With impassive eyes turned shoreward
And a chant of undertones,--
And the lotos leaning forward
To help them into dreams!
Fare ye well, farewell!
The river-sounds, no longer audible,
Expire at Eden's door.
Each footstep of your treading
Treads out some murmur which ye heard before.
Farewell! the streams of Eden
Ye shall hear nevermore.

_Bird Spirit. _
I am the nearest nightingale
That singeth in Eden after you;
And I am singing loud and true,
And sweet,--I do not fail.
I sit upon a cypress bough,
Close to the gate, and I fling my song
Over the gate and through the mail
Of the warden angels marshalled strong,--
Over the gate and after you.
And the warden angels let it pass,
Because the poor brown bird, alas,
Sings in the garden, sweet and true.
And I build my song of high pure notes,
Note over note, height over height,
Till I strike the arch of the Infinite,
And I bridge abysmal agonies
With strong, clear calms of harmonies,--
And something abides, and something floats,
In the song which I sing after you.
Fare ye well, farewell!
The creature-sounds, no longer audible,
Expire at Eden's door.
Each footstep of your treading
Treads out some cadence which ye heard before.
Farewell! the birds of Eden,
Ye shall hear nevermore.

_Flower Spirits. _
We linger, we linger,
The last of the throng,
Like the tones of a singer
Who loves his own song.
We are spirit-aromas
Of blossom and bloom.
We call your thoughts home,--as
Ye breathe our perfume,--
To the amaranth's splendour
Afire on the slopes;
To the lily-bells tender,
And grey heliotropes;
To the poppy-plains keeping
Such dream-breath and blee
That the angels there stepping
Grew whiter to see:
To the nook, set with moly,
Ye jested one day in,
Till your smile waxed too holy
And left your lips praying:
To the rose in the bower-place,
That dripped o'er you sleeping;
To the asphodel flower-place,
Ye walked ankle-deep in.
We pluck at your raiment,
We stroke down your hair,
We faint in our lament
And pine into air.
Fare ye well, farewell!
The Eden scents, no longer sensible,
Expire at Eden's door.
Each footstep of your treading
Treads out some fragrance which ye knew before.
Farewell! the flowers of Eden,
Ye shall smell nevermore.

[_There is silence. ADAM and EVE fly on, and never look back. Only a
colossal shadow, as of the dark Angel passing quickly, is cast upon
the Sword-glare. _

* * * * *

SCENE. --_The extremity of the Sword-glare. _

_Adam. _ Pausing a moment on this outer edge
Where the supernal sword-glare cuts in light
The dark exterior desert,--hast thou strength,
Beloved, to look behind us to the gate?

_Eve. _ Have I not strength to look up to thy face?

_Adam. _ We need be strong: yon spectacle of cloud
Which seals the gate up to the final doom,
Is God's seal manifest. There seem to lie
A hundred thunders in it, dark and dead;
The unmolten lightnings vein it motionless;
And, outward from its depth, the self-moved sword
Swings slow its awful gnomon of red fire
From side to side, in pendulous horror slow,
Across the stagnant ghastly glare thrown flat
On the intermediate ground from that to this.
The angelic hosts, the archangelic pomps,
Thrones, dominations, princedoms, rank on rank,
Rising sublimely to the feet of God,
On either side and overhead the gate,
Show like a glittering and sustainèd smoke
Drawn to an apex. That their faces shine
Betwixt the solemn clasping of their wings
Clasped high to a silver point above their heads,--
We only guess from hence, and not discern.

_Eve. _ Though we were near enough to see them shine,
The shadow on thy face were awfuller,
To me, at least,--to me--than all their light.

_Adam. _ What is this, Eve? thou droppest heavily
In a heap earthward, and thy body heaves
Under the golden floodings of thine hair!

_Eve. _ O Adam, Adam! by that name of Eve--
Thine Eve, thy life--which suits me little now,
Seeing that I now confess myself thy death
And thine undoer, as the snake was mine,--
I do adjure thee, put me straight away,
Together with my name! Sweet, punish me!
O Love, be just! and, ere we pass beyond
The light cast outward by the fiery sword,
Into the dark which earth must be to us,
Bruise my head with thy foot,--as the curse said
My seed shall the first tempter's! strike with curse,
As God struck in the garden! and as HE,
Being satisfied with justice and with wrath,
Did roll his thunder gentler at the close,--
Thou, peradventure, mayst at last recoil
To some soft need of mercy. Strike, my lord!
_I_, also, after tempting, writhe on the ground,
And I would feed on ashes from thine hand,
As suits me, O my tempted!

_Adam. _ My beloved,
Mine Eve and life--I have no other name
For thee or for the sun than what ye are,
My utter life and light! If we have fallen,
It is that we have sinned,--we: God is just;
And, since his curse doth comprehend us both,
It must be that his balance holds the weights
Of first and last sin on a level. What!
Shall I who had not virtue to stand straight
Among the hills of Eden, here assume
To mend the justice of the perfect God,
By piling up a curse upon his curse,
Against thee--thee?

_Eve. _ For so, perchance, thy God,
Might take thee into grace for scorning me;
Thy wrath against the sinner giving proof
Of inward abrogation of the sin:
And so, the blessed angels might come down
And walk with thee as erst,--I think they would,--
Because I was not near to make them sad
Or soil the rustling of their innocence.

_Adam. _ They know me. I am deepest in the guilt,
If last in the transgression.

_Eve. _ Thou!

_Adam. _ If God,
Who gave the right and joyaunce of the world
Both unto thee and me,--gave thee to me,
The best gift last, the last sin was the worst,
Which sinned against more complement of gifts
And grace of giving. God! I render back
Strong benediction and perpetual praise
From mortal feeble lips (as incense-smoke,
Out of a little censer, may fill heaven),
That thou, in striking my benumbèd hands
And forcing them to drop all other boons
Of beauty and dominion and delight,--
Hast left this well-beloved Eve, this life
Within life, this best gift between their palms,
In gracious compensation!

_Eve. _ Is it thy voice?
Or some saluting angel's--calling home
My feet into the garden?

_Adam. _ O my God!
I, standing here between the glory and dark,--
The glory of thy wrath projected forth
From Eden's wall, the dark of our distress
Which settles a step off in that drear world--
Lift up to thee the hands from whence hath fallen
Only creation's sceptre,--thanking thee
That rather thou hast cast me out with _her_
Than left me lorn of her in Paradise,
With angel looks and angel songs around
To show the absence of her eyes and voice,
And make society full desertness
Without her use in comfort!

_Eve. _ Where is loss?
Am I in Eden? can another speak
Mine own love's tongue?

_Adam. _ Because with _her_, I stand
Upright, as far as can be in this fall,
And look away from heaven which doth accuse,
And look away from earth which doth convict,
Into her face, and crown my discrowned brow
Out of her love, and put the thought of her
Around me, for an Eden full of birds,
And lift her body up--thus--to my heart,
And with my lips upon her lips,--thus, thus,--
Do quicken and sublimate my mortal breath
Which cannot climb against the grave's steep sides
But overtops this grief.

_Eve. _ I am renewed.
My eyes grow with the light which is in thine;
The silence of my heart is full of sound.
Hold me up--so! Because I comprehend
This human love, I shall not be afraid
Of any human death; and yet because
I know this strength of love, I seem to know
Death's strength by that same sign. Kiss on my lips,
To shut the door close on my rising soul,--
Lest it pass outwards in astonishment
And leave thee lonely!

_Adam. _ Yet thou liest, Eve,
Bent heavily on thyself across mine arm,
Thy face flat to the sky.

_Eve. _ Ay, and the tears
Running, as it might seem, my life from me,
They run so fast and warm. Let me lie so,
And weep so, as if in a dream or prayer,
Unfastening, clasp by clasp, the hard tight thought
Which clipped my heart and showed me evermore
Loathed of thy justice as I loathe the snake,
And as the pure ones loathe our sin. To-day,
All day, beloved, as we fled across
This desolating radiance cast by swords
Not suns,--my lips prayed soundless to myself,
Striking against each other--"O Lord God! "
('Twas so I prayed) "I ask Thee by my sin,
"And by thy curse, and by thy blameless heavens,
"Make dreadful haste to hide me from thy face
"And from the face of my beloved here
"For whom I am no helpmeet, quick away
"Into the new dark mystery of death!
"I will lie still there, I will make no plaint,
"I will not sigh, nor sob, nor speak a word,
"Nor struggle to come back beneath the sun
"Where peradventure I might sin anew
"Against thy mercy and his pleasure. Death,
"O death, whatever it be, is good enough
"For such as I am: while for Adam here,
"No voice shall say again, in heaven or earth,
"_It is not good for him to be alone_. "

_Adam. _ And was it good for such a prayer to pass,
My unkind Eve, betwixt our mutual lives?
If I am exiled, must I be bereaved?

_Eve. _ 'Twas an ill prayer: it shall be prayed no more;
And God did use it like a foolishness,
Giving no answer. Now my heart has grown
Too high and strong for such a foolish prayer,
Love makes it strong and since I was the first
In the transgression, with a steady foot
I will be first to tread from this sword-glare
Into the outer darkness of the waste,--
And thus I do it.

_Adam. _ Thus I follow thee,
As erewhile in the sin. --What sounds! what sounds!
I feel a music which comes straight from heaven,
As tender as a watering dew.

_Eve. _ I think
That angels--not those guarding Paradise,--
But the love-angels, who came erst to us,
And when we said 'GOD,' fainted unawares
Back from our mortal presence unto God,
(As if he drew them inward in a breath)
His name being heard of them,--I think that they
With sliding voices lean from heavenly towers,
Invisible but gracious. Hark--how soft!


CHORUS OF INVISIBLE ANGELS.

_Faint and tender. _

Mortal man and woman,
Go upon your travel!
Heaven assist the human
Smoothly to unravel
All that web of pain
Wherein ye are holden.
Do ye know our voices
Chanting down the Golden?
Do ye guess our choice is,
Being unbeholden,
To be hearkened by you yet again?

This pure door of opal
God hath shut between us,--
Us, his shining people,
You, who once have seen us
And are blinded new!
Yet, across the doorway,
Past the silence reaching,
Farewells evermore may,
Blessing in the teaching,
Glide from us to you.

_First Semichorus. _
Think how erst your Eden,
Day on day succeeding,
With our presence glowed.
We came as if the Heavens were bowed
To a milder music rare.
Ye saw us in our solemn treading,
Treading down the steps of cloud,
While our wings, outspreading
Double calms of whiteness,
Dropped superfluous brightness
Down from stair to stair.

_Second Semichorus. _
Or oft, abrupt though tender,
While ye gazed on space,
We flashed our angel-splendour
In either human face.
With mystic lilies in our hands,
From the atmospheric bands
Breaking with a sudden grace,
We took you unaware!
While our feet struck glories
Outward, smooth and fair,
Which we stood on floorwise,
Platformed in mid-air.

_First Semichorus. _
Or oft, when Heaven-descended,
Stood we in our wondering sight
In a mute apocalypse
With dumb vibrations on our lips
From hosannas ended,
And grand half-vanishings
Of the empyreal things
Within our eyes belated,
Till the heavenly Infinite
Falling off from the Created,
Left our inward contemplation
Opened into ministration.

_Chorus. _
Then upon our axle turning
Of great joy to sympathy,
We sang out the morning
Broadening up the sky,
Or we drew
Our music through
The noontide's hush and heat and shine,
Informed with our intense Divine:
Interrupted vital notes
Palpitating hither, thither,
Burning out into the æther,
Sensible like fiery motes.
Or, whenever twilight drifted
Through the cedar masses,
The globèd sun we lifted,
Trailing purple, trailing gold
Out between the passes
Of the mountains manifold,
To anthems slowly sung:
While he,--aweary, half in swoon
For joy to hear our climbing tune
Transpierce the stars' concentric rings,--
The burden of his glory flung
In broken lights upon our wings.

[_The chant dies away confusedly, and LUCIFER appears. _

_Lucifer. _ Now may all fruits be pleasant to thy lips,
Beautiful Eve! The times have somewhat changed
Since thou and I had talk beneath a tree,
Albeit ye are not gods yet.
_Eve. _ Adam! hold
My right hand strongly! It is Lucifer--
And we have love to lose.

_Adam. _ I' the name of God,
Go apart from us, O thou Lucifer!
And leave us to the desert thou hast made
Out of thy treason. Bring no serpent-slime
Athwart this path kept holy to our tears!
Or we may curse thee with their bitterness.

_Lucifer. _ Curse freely! curses thicken. Why, this Eve
Who thought me once part worthy of her ear
And somewhat wiser than the other beasts,--
Drawing together her large globes of eyes,
The light of which is throbbing in and out
Their steadfast continuity of gaze,--
Knots her fair eyebrows in so hard a knot,
And down from her white heights of womanhood
Looks on me so amazed,--I scarce should fear
To wager such an apple as she plucked
Against one riper from the tree of life,
That she could curse too--as a woman may--
Smooth in the vowels.

_Eve. _ So--speak wickedly!
I like it best so. Let thy words be wounds,--
For, so, I shall not fear thy power to hurt.
Trench on the forms of good by open ill--
For, so, I shall wax strong and grand with scorn,
Scorning myself for ever trusting thee
As far as thinking, ere a snake ate dust,
He could speak wisdom.

_Lucifer. _ Our new gods, it seems,
Deal more in thunders than in courtesies.
And, sooth, mine own Olympus, which anon
I shall build up to loud-voiced imagery
From all the wandering visions of the world,
May show worse railing than our lady Eve
Pours o'er the rounding of her argent arm.
But why should this be? Adam pardoned Eve.

_Adam. _ Adam loved Eve. Jehovah pardon both!

_Eve. _ Adam forgave Eve--because loving Eve.

_Lucifer. _ So, well. Yet Adam was undone of Eve,
As both were by the snake. Therefore forgive,
In like wise, fellow-temptress, the poor snake--
Who stung there, not so poorly!

[_Aside. _

_Eve. _ Hold thy wrath,
Beloved Adam! let me answer him;
For this time he speaks truth, which we should hear,
And asks for mercy, which I most should grant,
In like wise, as he tells us--in like wise!
And therefore I thee pardon, Lucifer,
As freely as the streams of Eden flowed
When we were happy by them. So, depart;
Leave us to walk the remnant of our time
Out mildly in the desert. Do not seek
To harm us any more or scoff at us,
Or ere the dust be laid upon our face,
To find there the communion of the dust
And issue of the dust,--Go!

_Adam. _ At once, go!

_Lucifer. _ Forgive! and go! Ye images of clay,
Shrunk somewhat in the mould,--what jest is this?
What words are these to use? By what a thought
Conceive ye of me? Yesterday--a snake!
To-day--what?

_Adam. _ A strong spirit.

_Eve. _ A sad spirit.

_Adam. _ Perhaps a fallen angel. --Who shall say!

_Lucifer. _ Who told thee, Adam?

_Adam. _ Thou! The prodigy
Of thy vast brows and melancholy eyes
Which comprehend the heights of some great fall.
I think that thou hast one day worn a crown
Under the eyes of God.

_Lucifer. _ And why of God?

_Adam. _ It were no crown else. Verily, I think
Thou'rt fallen far. I had not yesterday
Said it so surely, but I know to-day
Grief by grief, sin by sin.

_Lucifer. _ A crown, by a crown.

_Adam. _ Ay, mock me! now I know more than I knew:
Now I know that thou art fallen below hope
Of final re-ascent.

_Lucifer. _ Because?

_Adam. _ Because
A spirit who expected to see God
Though at the last point of a million years,
Could dare no mockery of a ruined man
Such as this Adam.

_Lucifer. _ Who is high and bold--
Be it said passing! --of a good red clay
Discovered on some top of Lebanon,
Or haply of Aornus, beyond sweep
Of the black eagle's wing! A furlong lower
Had made a meeker king for Eden. Soh!
Is it not possible, by sin and grief
(To give the things your names) that spirits should rise
Instead of falling?

_Adam. _ Most impossible.
The Highest being the Holy and the Glad,
Whoever rises must approach delight
And sanctity in the act.

_Lucifer. _ Ha, my clay-king!
Thou wilt not rule by wisdom very long
The after generations. Earth, methinks,
Will disinherit thy philosophy
For a new doctrine suited to thine heirs,
And class these present dogmas with the rest
Of the old-world traditions, Eden fruits
And Saurian fossils.

_Eve. _ Speak no more with him,
Beloved! it is not good to speak with him.
Go from us, Lucifer, and speak no more!
We have no pardon which thou dost not scorn,
Nor any bliss, thou seest, for coveting,
Nor innocence for staining. Being bereft,
We would be alone. --Go!

_Lucifer. _ Ah! ye talk the same,
All of you--spirits and clay--go, and depart!
In Heaven they said so, and at Eden's gate,
And here, reiterant, in the wilderness.
None saith, Stay with me, for thy face is fair!
None saith, Stay with me, for thy voice is sweet!
And yet I was not fashioned out of clay.
Look on me, woman! Am I beautiful?

_Eve. _ Thou hast a glorious darkness.

_Lucifer. _ Nothing more?

_Eve. _ I think, no more.

_Lucifer. _ False Heart--thou thinkest more!
Thou canst not choose but think, as I praise God,
Unwillingly but fully, that I stand
Most absolute in beauty. As yourselves
Were fashioned very good at best, so _we_
Sprang very beauteous from the creant Word
Which thrilled behind us, God himself being moved
When that august work of a perfect shape,
His dignities of sovran angel-hood,
Swept out into the universe,--divine
With thunderous movements, earnest looks of gods,
And silver-solemn clash of cymbal wings.
Whereof was I, in motion and in form,
A part not poorest. And yet,--yet, perhaps,
This beauty which I speak of, is not here,
As God's voice is not here, nor even my crown--
I do not know. What is this thought or thing
Which I call beauty? Is it thought, or thing?
Is it a thought accepted for a thing?
Or both? or neither? --a pretext--a word?
Its meaning flutters in me like a flame
Under my own breath, my perceptions reel
For evermore around it, and fall off,
As if it too were holy.

_Eve. _ Which it is.

_Adam. _ The essence of all beauty, I call love.
The attribute, the evidence, and end,
The consummation to the inward sense,
Of beauty apprehended from without,
I still call love. As form, when colourless,
Is nothing to the eye,--that pine-tree there,
Without its black and green, being all a blank,--
So, without love, is beauty undiscerned
In man or angel. Angel! rather ask
What love is in thee, what love moves to thee,
And what collateral love moves on with thee;
Then shalt thou know if thou art beautiful.

_Lucifer. _ Love! what is love? I lose it. Beauty and love
I darken to the image. Beauty--love!

[_He fades away, while a low music sounds. _

_Adam. _ Thou art pale, Eve.

_Eve. _ The precipice of ill
Down this colossal nature, dizzies me:
And, hark! the starry harmony remote
Seems measuring the heights from whence he fell.

_Adam. _ Think that we have not fallen so! By the hope
And aspiration, by the love and faith,
We do exceed the stature of this angel.

_Eve. _ Happier we are than he is, by the death.

_Adam. _ Or rather, by the life of the Lord God!
How dim the angel grows, as if that blast
Of music swept him back into the dark.

[_The music is stronger, gathering itself into uncertain articulation_

_Eve. _ It throbs in on us like a plaintive heart,
Pressing, with slow pulsations, vibrative,
Its gradual sweetness through the yielding air,
To such expression as the stars may use,
Most starry-sweet and strange! With every note
That grows more loud, the angel grows more dim,
Receding in proportion to approach,
Until he stand afar,--a shade.

_Adam. _ Now, words.


SONG OF THE MORNING STAR TO LUCIFER.

_He fades utterly away and vanishes, as it proceeds. _

Mine orbèd image sinks
Back from thee, back from thee,
As thou art fallen, methinks,
Back from me, back from me.
O my light-bearer,
Could another fairer
Lack to thee, lack to thee?
Ah, ah, Heosphoros!
I loved thee with the fiery love of stars
Who love by burning, and by loving move,
Too near the throned Jehovah not to love.
Ah, ah, Heosphoros!
Their brows flash fast on me from gliding cars,
Pale-passioned for my loss.
Ah, ah, Heosphoros!

Mine orbèd heats drop cold
Down from thee, down from thee,
As fell thy grace of old
Down from me, down from me,
O my light-bearer,
Is another fairer
Won to thee, won to thee?
Ah, ah, Heosphoros,
Great love preceded loss,
Known to thee, known to thee.
Ah, ah!
Thou, breathing thy communicable grace
Of life into my light,
Mine astral faces, from thine angel face,
Hast inly fed,
And flooded me with radiance overmuch
From thy pure height.
Ah, ah!
Thou, with calm, floating pinions both ways spread,
Erect, irradiated,
Didst sting my wheel of glory
On, on before thee
Along the Godlight by a quickening touch!
Ha, ha!
Around, around the firmamental ocean
I swam expanding with delirious fire!
Around, around, around, in blind desire
To be drawn upward to the Infinite--
Ha, ha!

Until, the motion flinging out the motion
To a keen whirl of passion and avidity,
To a dim whirl of languor and delight,
I wound in gyrant orbits smooth and white
With that intense rapidity.
Around, around,
I wound and interwound,
While all the cyclic heavens about me spun.
Stars, planets, suns, and moons dilated broad,
Then flashed together into a single sun,
And wound, and wound in one:
And as they wound I wound,--around, around,
In a great fire I almost took for God.
Ha, ha, Heosphoros!

Thine angel glory sinks
Down from me, down from me--
My beauty falls, methinks,
Down from thee, down from thee!
O my light-bearer,
O my path-preparer,
Gone from me, gone from me!
Ah, ah, Heosphoros!
I cannot kindle underneath the brow
Of this new angel here, who is not thou.
All things are altered since that time ago,--
And if I shine at eve, I shall not know.
I am strange--I am slow.
Ah, ah, Heosphoros!
Henceforward, human eyes of lovers be
The only sweetest sight that I shall see,
With tears between the looks raised up to me.
Ah, ah!
When, having wept all night, at break of day
Above the folded hills they shall survey
My light, a little trembling, in the grey.
Ah, ah!
And gazing on me, such shall comprehend,
Through all my piteous pomp at morn or even
And melancholy leaning out of heaven,
That love, their own divine, may change or end,
That love may close in loss!
Ah, ah, Heosphoros!

* * * * *

SCENE. --_Farther on. A wild open country seen vaguely in the approaching
night. _

_Adam. _ How doth the wide and melancholy earth
Gather her hills around us, grey and ghast,
And stare with blank significance of loss
Right in our faces! Is the wind up?

_Eve. _ Nay.

_Adam. _ And yet the cedars and the junipers
Rock slowly through the mist, without a sound,
And shapes which have no certainty of shape
Drift duskly in and out between the pines,
And loom along the edges of the hills,
And lie flat, curdling in the open ground--
Shadows without a body, which contract
And lengthen as we gaze on them.

_Eve. _ O life
Which is not man's nor angel's! What is this?

_Adam. _ No cause for fear. The circle of God's life
Contains all life beside.

_Eve. _ I think the earth
Is crazed with curse, and wanders from the sense
Of those first laws affixed to form and space
Or ever she knew sin.

_Adam. _ We will not fear;
We were brave sinning.

_Eve. _ Yea, I plucked the fruit
With eyes upturned to heaven and seeing there
Our god-thrones, as the tempter said,--not GOD.
My heart, which beat then, sinks. The sun hath sunk
Out of sight with our Eden.

_Adam. _ Night is near.

_Eve. _ And God's curse, nearest. Let us travel back
And stand within the sword-glare till we die,
Believing it is better to meet death
Than suffer desolation.

_Adam. _ Nay, beloved!
We must not pluck death from the Maker's hand,
As erst we plucked the apple: we must wait
Until he gives death as he gave us life,
Nor murmur faintly o'er the primal gift
Because we spoilt its sweetness with our sin.

_Eve. _ Ah, ah! dost thou discern what I behold?

_Adam. _ I see all. How the spirits in thine eyes
From their dilated orbits bound before
To meet the spectral Dread!

_Eve. _ I am afraid--
Ah, ah! the twilight bristles wild with shapes
Of intermittent motion, aspect vague
And mystic bearings, which o'ercreep the earth,
Keeping slow time with horrors in the blood.
How near they reach . . .