And, moved and shaken like a conscious thing, The tree of sin dilated horribly Its frondage over all the land and sea, And with its poisonous shadow followed far The flight of Cain.... .... And he who first By th' arduous solitudes and by the heights And labyrinths of the virgin earth conducted This ever-wandering, lost Humanity Was the Accursed. Cain passes away, and his children fill the world, and the joy of guiltless labor brightens the poet's somber verse. The murmur of the works of man arose Up from the plains; the caves reverberated The blows of restless hammers that revealed, Deep in the bowels of the fruitful hills, The iron and the faithless gold, with rays Of evil charm. And all the cliffs repeated The beetle's fall, and the unceasing leap Of waters on the paddles of the wheel Volubly busy; and with heavy strokes Upon the borders of the inviolate woods The ax was heard descending on the trees, Upon the odorous bark of mighty pines. Over the imminent upland's utmost brink The blonde wild-goat stretched forth his neck to meet The unknown sound, and, caught with sudden fear, Down the steep bounded, and the arrow cut Midway the flight of his aerial foot. So all the wild earth was tamed to the hand of man, and the wisdom of the stars began to reveal itself to the shepherds, Who, in the leisure of the argent nights, Leading their flocks upon a sea of meadows, turned their eyes upon the heavenly bodies, and questioned them in their courses. But a taint of guilt was in all the blood of Cain, which the deluge alone could purge. And beautiful beyond all utterance Were the earth's first-born daughters. Phantasms these That now enamor us decrepit, by The light of that prime beauty! And the glance Those ardent sinners darted had beguiled God's angels even, so that the Lord's command Was weaker than the bidding of their eyes. And there were seen, descending from on high, His messengers, and in the tepid eyes Gathering their flight about the secret founts Where came the virgins wandering sole to stretch The nude pomp of their perfect loveliness. Caught by some sudden flash of light afar, The shepherd looked, and deemed that he beheld A fallen star, and knew not that he saw A fallen angel, whose distended wings, All tremulous with voluptuous delight, Strove vainly to lift him to the skies again. The earth with her malign embraces blest The heavenly-born, and they straightway forgot The joys of God's eternal paradise For the brief rapture of a guilty love. And from these nuptials, violent and strange, A strange and violent race of giants rose; A chain of sin had linked the earth to heaven; And God repented him of his own work. The destroying rains descended,