_Cain_. You have said well; I will contain My heart till then. He smiles, and sleeps!--sleep on, And smile, thou little, young inheritor Of a world scarce less young: sleep on, and smile! 20 Thine are the hours and days when both are cheering And innocent! _thou_ hast not plucked the fruit-- Thou know'st not thou art naked! Must the time Come thou shalt be amerced for sins unknown, Which were not thine nor mine? But now sleep on! His cheeks are reddening into deeper smiles, And shining lids are trembling o'er his long Lashes,[125] dark as the cypress which waves o'er them; Half open, from beneath them the clear blue Laughs out, although in slumber. He must dream-- 30 Of what? Of Paradise!--Aye! dream of it, My disinherited boy! 'Tis but a dream; For never more thyself, thy sons, nor fathers, Shall walk in that forbidden place of joy! _Adah_. Dear Cain! Nay, do not whisper o'er our son Such melancholy yearnings o'er the past: Why wilt thou always mourn for Paradise? Can we not make another? _Cain_. Where? _Adah_. Here, or Where'er thou wilt: where'er thou art, I feel not The want of this so much regretted Eden. 40 Have I not thee--our boy--our sire, and brother, And Zillah--our sweet sister, and our Eve, To whom we owe so much besides our birth? _Cain_. Yes--Death, too, is amongst the debts we owe her. _Adah_. Cain! that proud Spirit, who withdrew thee hence, Hath saddened thine still deeper. I had hoped The promised wonders which thou hast beheld, Visions, thou say'st, of past and present worlds, Would have composed thy mind into the calm Of a contented knowledge; but I see 50 Thy guide hath done thee evil: still I thank him, And can forgive him all, that he so soon Hath given thee back to us. _Cain_. So soon? _Adah_. 'Tis scarcely Two hours since ye departed: two _long_ hours To _me_, but only _hours_ upon the sun. _Cain_. And yet I have approached that sun, and seen Worlds which he once shone on, and never more Shall light; and worlds he never lit: methought Years had rolled o'er my absence. _Adah_. Hardly hours. _Cain_. The mind then hath capacity of time, 60 And measures it by that which it beholds, Pleasing or painful[126]; little or almighty. I had beheld the immemorial works Of endless beings; skirred extinguished worlds; And, gazing on eternity, methought I had borrowed more by a few drops of ages From its immensity: but now I feel My littleness again. Well said the Spirit, That I was nothing! _Adah_. Wherefore said he so? Jehovah said not that.