Part 3

_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 ... and far! How grey they move-- Treading upon the darkness without feet, And fluttering on the darkness without wings! Some run like dogs, with noses to the ground; Some keep one path, like sheep; some rock like trees; Some glide like a fallen leaf, and some flow on Copious as rivers.

_Adam._ Some spring up like fire; And some coil ...

_Eve._ Ah, ah! dost thou pause to say Like what?--coil like the serpent, when he fell From all the emerald splendour of his height And writhed, and could not climb against the curse, Not a ring's length. I am afraid--afraid-- I think it is God's will to make me afraid,-- Permitting THESE to haunt us in the place Of his belovèd angels--gone from us Because we are not pure. Dear Pity of God, That didst permit the angels to go home And live no more with us who are not pure, Save _us_ too from a loathly company-- Almost as loathly in our eyes, perhaps, As _we_ are in the purest! Pity us-- Us too! nor shut us in the dark, away From verity and from stability, Or what we name such through the precedence Of earth's adjusted uses,--leave us not To doubt betwixt our senses and our souls, Which are the more distraught and full of pain And weak of apprehension!

_Adam._ Courage, Sweet! The mystic shapes ebb back from us, and drop With slow concentric movement, each on each,-- Expressing wider spaces,--and collapsed In lines more definite for imagery And clearer for relation, till the throng Of shapeless spectra merge into a few Distinguishable phantasms vague and grand Which sweep out and around us vastily And hold us in a circle and a calm.

_Eve._ Strange phantasms of pale shadow! there are twelve. Thou who didst name all lives, hast names for these?

_Adam._ Methinks this is the zodiac of the earth, Which rounds us with a visionary dread, Responding with twelve shadowy signs of earth, In fantasque apposition and approach, To those celestial, constellated twelve Which palpitate adown the silent nights Under the pressure of the hand of God Stretched wide in benediction. At this hour, Not a star pricketh the flat gloom of heaven: But, girdling close our nether wilderness, The zodiac-figures of the earth loom slow,-- Drawn out, as suiteth with the place and time, In twelve colossal shades instead of stars, Through which the ecliptic line of mystery Strikes bleakly with an unrelenting scope, Foreshowing life and death.

_Eve._ By dream or sense, Do we see this?

_Adam._ Our spirits have climbed high By reason of the passion of our grief, And, from the top of sense, looked over sense To the significance and heart of things Rather than things themselves.

_Eve._ And the dim twelve....

_Adam._ Are dim exponents of the creature-life As earth contains it. Gaze on them, beloved! By stricter apprehension of the sight, Suggestions of the creatures shall assuage The terror of the shadows,--what is known Subduing the unknown and taming it From all prodigious dread. That phantasm, there, Presents a lion, albeit twenty times As large as any lion--with a roar Set soundless in his vibratory jaws, And a strange horror stirring in his mane. And, there, a pendulous shadow seems to weigh-- Good against ill, perchance; and there, a crab Puts coldly out its gradual shadow-claws, Like a slow blot that spreads,--till all the ground, Crawled over by it, seems to crawl itself. A bull stands hornèd here with gibbous glooms; And a ram likewise: and a scorpion writhes Its tail in ghastly slime and stings the dark. This way a goat leaps with wild blank of beard; And here, fantastic fishes duskly float, Using the calm for waters, while their fins Throb out quick rhythms along the shallow air. While images more human----

_Eve._ How he stands, That phantasm of a man--who is not _thou_! Two phantasms of two men!

_Adam._ One that sustains, And one that strives,--resuming, so, the ends Of manhood's curse of labour.[B] Dost thou see That phantasm of a woman?

_Eve._ I have seen; But look off to those small humanities[C] Which draw me tenderly across my fear,-- Lesser and fainter than my womanhood, Or yet thy manhood--with strange innocence Set in the misty lines of head and hand. They lean together! I would gaze on them Longer and longer, till my watching eyes, As the stars do in watching anything, Should light them forward from their outline vague To clear configuration.

[_Two Spirits, of Organic and Inorganic Nature, arise from the ground._

But what Shapes Rise up between us in the open space, And thrust me into horror, back from hope!

_Adam._ Colossal Shapes--twin sovran images, With a disconsolate, blank majesty Set in their wondrous faces! with no look, And yet an aspect--a significance Of individual life and passionate ends, Which overcomes us gazing. O bleak sound, O shadow of sound, O phantasm of thin sound! How it comes, wheeling as the pale moth wheels, Wheeling and wheeling in continuous wail Around the cyclic zodiac, and gains force, And gathers, settling coldly like a moth, On the wan faces of these images We see before us,--whereby modified, It draws a straight line of articulate song From out that spiral faintness of lament, And, by one voice, expresses many griefs.

_First Spirit._ I am the spirit of the harmless earth. God spake me softly out among the stars, As softly as a blessing of much worth; And then his smile did follow unawares, That all things fashioned so for use and duty Might shine anointed with his chrism of beauty-- Yet I wail! I drave on with the worlds exultingly, Obliquely down the Godlight's gradual fall; Individual aspect and complexity Of gyratory orb and interval Lost in the fluent motion of delight Toward the high ends of Being beyond sight-- Yet I wail!

_Second Spirit._ I am the spirit of the harmless beasts, Of flying things, and creeping things, and swimming; Of all the lives, erst set at silent feasts, That found the love-kiss on the goblet brimming, And tasted in each drop within the measure The sweetest pleasure of their Lord's good pleasure-- Yet I wail! What a full hum of life around his lips Bore witness to the fulness of creation! How all the grand words were full-laden ships Each sailing onward from enunciation To separate existence,--and each bearing The creature's power of joying, hoping, fearing! Yet I wail!

_Eve._ They wail, beloved! they speak of glory and God, And they wail--wail. That burden of the song Drops from it like its fruit, and heavily falls Into the lap of silence.

_Adam._ Hark, again!

_First Spirit._ I was so beautiful, so beautiful, My joy stood up within me bold to add A word to God's,--and, when His work was full, To "very good" responded "very glad!" Filtered through roses did the light enclose me, And bunches of the grape swam blue across me-- Yet I wail!

_Second Spirit._ I bounded with my panthers: I rejoiced In my young tumbling lions rolled together: My stag, the river at his fetlocks, poised Then dipped his antlers through the golden weather In the same ripple which the alligator Left, in his joyous troubling of the water-- Yet I wail!

_First Spirit._ O my deep waters, cataract and flood, What wordless triumph did your voices render O mountain-summits, where the angels stood And shook from head and wing thick dews of splendour! How, with a holy quiet, did your Earthy Accept that Heavenly, knowing ye were worthy! Yet I wail!

_Second Spirit._ O my wild wood-dogs, with your listening eyes! My horses--my ground-eagles, for swift fleeing! My birds, with viewless wings of harmonies, My calm cold fishes of a silver being, How happy were ye, living and possessing, O fair half-souls capacious of full blessing! Yet I wail!

_First Spirit._ I wail, I wail! Now hear my charge to-day, Thou man, thou woman, marked as the misdoers By God's sword at your backs! I lent my clay To make your bodies, which had grown more flowers: And now, in change for what I lent, ye give me The thorn to vex, the tempest-fare to cleave me-- And I wail!

_Second Spirit._ I wail, I wail! Behold ye that I fasten My sorrow's fang upon your souls dishonoured? Accursed transgressors! down the steep ye hasten,-- Your crown's weight on the world, to drag it downward Unto your ruin. Lo! my lions, scenting The blood of wars, roar hoarse and unrelenting-- And I wail!

_First Spirit._ I wail, I wail! Do you hear that I wail? I had no part in your transgression--none. My roses on the bough did bud not pale, My rivers did not loiter in the sun; _I_ was obedient. Wherefore in my centre Do I thrill at this curse of death and winter?-- Do I wail?