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"Now the serpent was more subtile than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.”—Gen., ch. iii., v. 1.

TO SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART..

THIS MYSTERY OF CAIN

Is Inscribed,

BY HIS OBLIGED FRIEND AND FAITHFUL SERVANT,

THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

THE following scenes are entitled "A Mystery," in conformity with the ancient title annexed to dramas upon similar subjects, which were styled "Mysteries, or Moralities." The author has by no means taken the same lib- | erties with his subject which were common formerly, as may be seen by any reader curious enough to refer to those very profane productions, whether in English, French, Italian, or Spanish. The author has endeavored to preserve the language adapted to his characters; and where it is (and this is but rarely) taken from actual Scripture, he has made as little alteration, even of words, as the rhythm would permit. The reader will recollect that the book of Genesis does not state that Eve was tempted by a demon, but by "the serpent;" and that only because he was "the most subtile of all the beasts of the field." Whatever interpretation the Rabbins and the Fathers may have put upon this, I take the words as I find them, and reply, with Bishop Watson upon similar occasions, when the Fathers were quoted to him, as Moderator in the schools of Cambridge, “Behold the Book!" -holding up the Scripture. It is to be recollected that my present subject has nothing to do with the New Testament, to which no reference can be here made without anachronism. With the poems upon similar topics I have not been recently familiar. Since I was twenty, I have never read Milton; but I had read him so frequently before that this may make little difference. Gesner's "Death of Abel" I have never read since I was eight years of age, at Aberdeen. The general impression of my recollection is delight; but of the contents I remember only that Cain's wife was called Mahala, and Abel's Thirza: in the following pages I have called them “Adah” and “Zillah," the earliest female names which occur in Genesis; they were those of Lamech's wives: those of Cain and Abel are not called by their names.

*"Cain" was begun at Ravenna, on the 16th of July, 1821, completed on the 9th of September, and published, in the same volume with Sardanapalus and the Two Foscari, in December. Perhaps no production of Lord Byron has been

Whether, then, a coincidence of subject may have caused the same in expression, I know nothing, and care as little. The reader will please bear in mind (what few choose to recollect), that there is no allusion to a future state in any of the books of Moses, nor indeed in the Old Testament. For a reason for this extraordinary omission he may consult Warburton's "Divine Legation;" whether satisfactory or not, no better has yet been assigned. I have therefore supposed it new to Cain, without, I hope, any perversion of Holy Writ.

With regard to the language of Lucifer, it was difficult for me to make him talk like a clergyman upon the same subjects; but I have done what I could to restrain him within the bounds of spiritual politeness.

If he disclaims having tempted Eve in the shape of the Serpent, it is only because the book of Genesis has not the most distant allusion to anything of the kind, but merely to the Serpent in his serpentine capacity.

Note. The reader will perceive that the author has partly adopted in this poem the notion of Cuvier, that the world has been destroyed several times before the creation of man. This speculation, derived from the different strata and the bones of enormous and unknown animals found in them, is not contrary to the Mosaic account, but rather confirms it; as no human bones have yet been discovered in those strata, although those of many known animals are found near the remains of the unknown. The assertion of Lucifer, that the pre-Adamite world was also peopled by rational beings much more intelligent than man, and proportionably powerful to the mammoth, etc., is, of course, a poetical fiction to help him make out his case. I ought to add, that there is a "tramelogedia" of Alfieri, called "Abele." I have never read that, nor any other of the posthumous works of the writer, except his Life. RAVENNA, Sept. 20, 1821.

more generally admired, on the score of ability, than this "Mystery; "-certainly none, on first appearing, exposed the author to a fiercer tempest of personal abuse.-See ante, Life of Byron.

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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,
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; 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.

The umbrage of the walls of Eden, checker'd
By the far flashing of the cherubs' swords,
I watch'd for what I thought his coming: for
With fear rose longing in my heart to know
What 't was which shook us all-but nothing came.
And then I turn'd my weary eyes from off
Our native and forbidden Paradise,

Up to the lights above us, in the azure,
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: 't is denounced against us,
Both them who sinn'd and sinn'd not, as an ill-

He but woke one What ill?

In those he spake to with his forky tongue.
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 roll'd 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;

Thy

But we, who see the truth, must speak it.
Fond parents listen'd 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.

Lucifer. Darest thou look on death?
Cain.

Been seen.

Lucifer. To be resolved into the earth.
Cain. But shall I know it?
Lucifer.

I cannot answer.
Cain.

As I know not death,

Were I quiet earth,

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 pluck'd he not
The life-tree?
Lucifer.
Cain.

He was hinder'd.

Deadly error!
Not to snatch first that fruit:-but ere he pluck'd
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 noth-
ing: see
What is true knowledge.

Cain.

Wilt thou teach me all?
Lucifer. Ay, upon one condition.
Cain.

Name it.

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Be it proved.

He has not yet

Thou dost fall down and worship me-thy Lord.
Cain. Thou art not the Lord my father worships.
Lucifer.
Cain. His equal?

No.

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Lucifer. No;-I have nought in common with

him!

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
As yet have bow'd 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.

To him?

Hast thou ne'er bow'd

Cain. Have I not said it ?-need I say it?

Lucifer. It has no shape; but will absorb all Could not thy mighty knowledge teach thee that?

That bear the form of earth-born being.

Cain.

I thought it was a being: who could do
Such evil things to beings save a being?
Lucifer. Ask the Destroyer.
Cain.

Lucifer.

Ah!

Who?

The Maker-call him

Which name thou wilt; he makes but to destroy.
Cain. knew not that, yet thought it, since I
heard

Of death: although I know not what it is,
Yet it seems horrible. I have look'd out
In the vast desolate night in search of him;
And when I saw gigantic shadows in

Lucifer. He who bows not to him has bow'd to
me!

Cain. But I will bend to neither.
Lucifer.

Thou art my worshipper: not worshipping
Him makes thee mine the same.

Cain.

Lucifer. Thou 'lt know here-and hereafter.
Cain.

Ne'ertheless,

And what is that?

Let me but

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Adah.

But he is welcome, as they were: they deign'd

Of rest?-he is welcome.

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The angels we have seen.

Are there, then, others?

To be our guests-will he?
Cain (to Lucifer).

Wilt thou?

Lucifer.

I ask

Cain.

I must away with him.

Adah. And leave us?

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And me?

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Thee to be mine.

Beloved Adah!

Art thou that steppest between heart and heart?

Cain. He is a god.

Adah.

How know'st thou ?

Cain.

A god.

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

Adah.
Oh, my mother! thou
Hast pluck'd a fruit more fatal to thine offspring
Than to thyself; thou at the least hast pass'd
Thy youth in Paradise, in innocent

And happy intercourse with happy_spirits:
But we, thy children, ignorant of Eden,
Are girt about by demons, who assume
The words of God, and tempt us with our own
Dissatisfied and curious thoughts-as thou
Wert work'd on by the snake, in thy most flush'd
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

He speaks like There is a fastening attraction which

Adah. So did the serpent, and it lied.

Fixes my fluttering eyes on his; my heart
Beats quick; he awes me, and yet draws me near,

Lucifer. Thou errest, Adah!-was not the tree Nearer and nearer:-Cain-Cain-save me from

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Adah. But all we know of it has gather'd
Evil on ill: expulsion from our home,
And dread, and toil, and sweat, and heaviness;
Remorse of that which was-and hope of that'
Which cometh not. Cain! walk not with this spirit.
Bear with what we have borne, and love me-İ
Love thee.
Lucifer.

More than thy mother, and thy sire?
Adah. I do. Is that a sin, too?
Lucifer.

It one day will be in your children.

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I have heard it said,
The seraphs love most-cherubim know most-
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?
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 :
His worship is but fear.

X

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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 snatch'd 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
Through thrice a thousand generations! never
Shall men love the remembrance of the man
Who sow'd the seed of evil and mankind

In the same hour! They pluck'd 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 unnumber'd and innumerable
Multitudes, millions, myriads, which may be,
To inherit agonies accumulated

By ages!-and I must be sire of such things!
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,
Intercheck'd with an instant of brief pleasure,

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Save in my father, who is God's own image;
Or in his angels, who are like to thee-
And brighter, yet less beautiful and powerful
In seeming as the silent sunny noon,
All light, they look upon us; but thou seem'st
Like an ethereal night, where long white clouds
Streak the deep purple, and unnumber'd stars
Spangle the wonderful mysterious vault
With things that look as if they would be suns;
So beautiful, unnumber'd, and endearing,
Not dazzling, and yet drawing us to them,

To Death-the unknown! Methinks the tree of They fill my eyes with tears, and so dost thou.

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Thou seem'st unhappy: do not make us so,
And I will weep for thee.
Lucifer.
Alas! those tears!
Couldst thou but know what oceans will be shed—
Adah. By me?

Lucifer.

Adah.

Lucifer.

By all.

What all?

The million millionsThe myriad myriads-the all-peopled earthThe unpeopled earth-and the o'er-peopled hell, Of which thy bosom is the germ.

Adah.

Oh,

Cain!

Alone I could not,

This spirit curseth us.

Cain.

Let him say on;

Him will I follow.
Adah.
Lucifer.

Whither?

To a place

Nor would be happy: but with those around us, I think I could be so, despite of death,

Which, as I know it not, I dread not, though

It seems an awful shadow-if I may
Judge from what I have heard.

Lucifer.

And thou couldst not

Alone, thou sayst, be happy?
Adah.
Alone! Oh, my God!
Who could be happy and alone, or good?
To me my solitude seems sin; unless
When I think how soon I shall see my brother,
His brother, and our children, and our parents.
Lucifer. Yet thy God is alone; and is he happy?
Lonely, and good?

Adah.
He is not so; he hath
The angels and the mortals to make happy,
And thus becomes so in diffusing joy.
What else can joy be, but the spreading joy?
Lucifer. Ask of your sire, the exile fresh from
Eden;

Or of his first-born son: ask your own heart;
It is not tranquil.

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Whence he shall come back to thee in an hour;
But in that hour see things of many days.
Adah. How can that be?
Lucifer.
Did not your Maker make
Out of old worlds this new one in few days?
And cannot I, who aided in this work,
Show in an hour what he hath made in many,
Or hath destroy'd in few?

Cain. Adah.

Lead on.

Will he,

He shall.

In sooth, return within an hour?
Lucifer.

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.
Adah. Will he return?
Lucifer.

Ay, woman! he alone Of mortals from that place (the first and last Who shall return, save ONE), shall come back to

thee,

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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 kingdom which is not
His. If I were not that which I have said,
Could I stand here? His angels are within
Your vision.
Adah. So they were when the fair serpent
Spoke with our mother first.

Lucifer.

Cain! thou hast heard.

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. Follow me.
Cain. Spirit, I have said it.

[Exeunt Lucifer and Cain. Adah (follows, exclaiming). Cain! my brother! Cain!

ACT

II.

SCENE I.-The Abyss 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,
A man shall say to a man, Believe in me,
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

66

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?
Lucifer.

Dost thou not recognize

The dust which form'd your father?
Cain.

Can it be?

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?
Lucifer.

Link'd to a servile mass of matter, and,
Knowing such things, aspiring to such things,
And science still beyond them, were chain'd down
To the most gross and petty paltry wants, we
All foul and fulsome, and the very best
Of thine enjoyments a sweet degradation,
A most enervating and filthy cheat
To lure thee on to the renewal of

Fresh souls and bodies, all foredoom'd to be
As frail, and few so happy-
Cain.

Spirit! I
Know nought of death, save as a dreadful thing
Of which I have heard my parents speak, as of
A hideous heritage I owe to them
No less than life; a heritage not happy,
If I may judge, till now. But, spirit! if
It be as thou hast said (and I within
Feel the prophetic torture of its truth),
Here let me die: for to give birth to those
Who can but suffer many years, and die,
Methinks is merely propagating death,
And multiplying murder.
Lucifer.

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The Other

Thou canst not
All die-there is what must survive.
Cain.

Spake not of this unto my father, when
He shut him forth from Paradise, with death
Written upon his forehead. But at least
Let what is mortal of me perish, that

I may be in the rest as angels are.

Lucifer. I am angelic: wouldst thou be as I am? Cain. I know not what thou art; I see thy power, And see thou show'st me things beyond my power, Beyond all power of my born faculties, Although inferior still to my desires And my conceptions.

Lucifer.

What are they which dwell So humbly in their pride, as to sojourn With worms in clay? Cain.

And what art thou who dwellest

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Point me out the site So haughtily in spirit, and canst range
Nature and immortality-and yet
Seem'st sorrowful?

Of Paradise.
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 round 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?

I should be proud of thought But if that high thought were

Cain. Which knew such things. Lucifer.

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