LVCIFER

LVCIFER. Mortal! / CAIN. Spirit, who art you? / -Master of Spirits. -And being so, canst thou / Leave them and walk with dust? -I know the thoughts / Of dust, and feel for it, and with you. / -How? / You know my thoughts? - They are the thoughts of all / Worthy of thoughts: ‘tis your immortal part / Which speaks within you. -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! / - They have deceived thee; thou shalt live.  - I live / But live to die; and, living, see no thing / 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! / -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. / - No LESS! and why / No more? -It may be thou shalt be as we. / And ye? -Are everlasting. -Are ye happy? / -We are mighty. -Are ye happy? -No: art you? / -How should I be so? Look on me! -Poor clay: / And thou pretendest to be wretched! Thou! / -I am: —and thou, with all thy might, what art thou? / -One who aspired to be what made thee, and / Would not have made thee what you art. -Ah! / Thou look’st almost a god; and—-  -I am none: / And having fail’d to be one, would be nought / Save what I am. He conquer’d; let Him reign! / -Who? -Thy sire ´s Maker, and the earth’s. -And heavens, / And all that in them is. So I have heard / His seraphs sing; and so my father saith. / -They say —what they must sing and say, on pain / Of being that which I am —and thou art— / Of spirits and of men. -And what is that? / -Souls who dare use their immortality—/ Souls who dare look the Omnipotent tyran in / His everlasting face, and tell Him that / His evil is not good!  If He has made, / As He saith —which I know not, nor believe— / But if He maid 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, 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 / And unparticipated solitude! / Let Him crowd orb on orb: He is alone / Indefinite, indissoluble tyrant! / Could He but crush Himself, ‘twere the best boon / He ever granted…