_Lucifer_. Souls who dare use their immortality-- Souls who dare look the Omnipotent tyrant in His everlasting face, and tell him that His evil is not good! If he has made, 140 As he saith--which I know not, nor believe-- But, if he made 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, is 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 150 And unparticipated solitude;[99] Let him crowd orb on orb: he is alone Indefinite, Indissoluble Tyrant; Could he but crush himself, 'twere the best boon He ever granted: but let him reign on! And multiply himself in misery! Spirits and Men, at least we sympathise-- And, suffering in concert, make our pangs Innumerable, more endurable, By the unbounded sympathy of all 160 With all! But _He_! so wretched in his height, So restless in his wretchedness, must still Create, and re-create--perhaps he'll make[100] One day a Son unto himself--as he Gave you a father--and if he so doth, Mark me! that Son will be a sacrifice! _Cain_. Thou speak'st to me of things which long have swum In visions through my thought: I never could Reconcile what I saw with what I heard. My father and my mother talk to me 170 Of serpents, and of fruits and trees: I see The gates of what they call their Paradise Guarded by fiery-sworded Cherubim, Which shut them out--and me: I feel the weight Of daily toil, and constant thought: I look Around a world where I seem nothing, with Thoughts which arise within me, as if they Could master all things--but I thought alone This misery was _mine_. My father is Tamed down; my mother has forgot the mind 180 Which made her thirst for knowledge at the risk Of an eternal curse; my brother is A watching shepherd boy,[101] who offers up The firstlings of the flock to him who bids The earth yield nothing to us without sweat;[by] My sister Zillah sings an earlier hymn Than the birds' matins; and my Adah--my Own and belovéd--she, too, understands not The mind which overwhelms me: never till Now met I aught to sympathise with me. 190 'Tis well--I rather would consort with spirits. _Lucifer_. And hadst thou not been fit by thine own soul For such companionship, I would not now Have stood before thee as I am: a serpent Had been enough to charm ye, as before.[bz] _Cain_. Ah! didst _thou_ tempt my mother?