_Lucifer_. The sin I speak of is not of my making, And cannot be a sin in you--whate'er It seem in those who will replace ye in Mortality[106]. _Adah_. What is the sin which is not 380 Sin in itself? Can circumstance make sin Or virtue?--if it doth, we are the slaves Of---- _Lucifer_. Higher things than ye are slaves: and higher Than them or ye would be so, did they not Prefer an independency of torture To the smooth agonies of adulation, In hymns and harpings, and self-seeking prayers, To that which is omnipotent, because It is omnipotent, and not from love, But terror and self-hope. _Adah_. Omnipotence 390 Must be all goodness. _Lucifer_. Was it so in Eden? _Adah_. Fiend! tempt me not with beauty; thou art fairer Than was the Serpent, and as false. _Lucifer_. As true. Ask Eve, your mother: bears she not the knowledge Of good and evil? _Adah_. Oh, my mother! thou Hast plucked a fruit more fatal to thine offspring Than to thyself; thou at the least hast passed Thy youth in Paradise, in innocent And happy intercourse with happy spirits: But we, thy children, ignorant of Eden, 400 Are girt about by demons, who assume The words of God, and tempt us with our own Dissatisfied and curious thoughts--as thou Wert worked on by the snake, in thy most flushed And heedless, harmless wantonness of bliss. I cannot answer this immortal thing Which stands before me; I cannot abhor him; I look upon him with a pleasing fear, And yet I fly not from him: in his eye There is a fastening attraction which 410 Fixes my fluttering eyes on his; my heart Beats quick; he awes me, and yet draws me near, Nearer and nearer:--Cain--Cain--save me from him! _Cain_. What dreads my Adah? This is no ill spirit. _Adah_. He is not God--nor God's: I have beheld The Cherubs and the Seraphs; he looks not Like them. _Cain_. But there are spirits loftier still-- The archangels. _Lucifer_. And still loftier than the archangels. _Adah_. Aye--but not blesséd. _Lucifer_. If the blessedness Consists in slavery--no. _Adah_. I have heard it said, 420 The Seraphs _love most_--Cherubim _know most_[107]-- And this should be a Cherub--since he loves not.