_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._