_Angel_. Who shall heal murder? what is done, is done; Go forth! fulfil thy days! and be thy deeds Unlike the last! [_The_ ANGEL _disappears_. _Adah_. He's gone, let us go forth; I hear our little Enoch cry within Our bower. _Cain_. Ah! little knows he what he weeps for! 520 And I who have shed blood cannot shed tears! But the four rivers[137] would not cleanse my soul. Think'st thou my boy will bear to look on me? _Adah_. If I thought that he would not, I would---- _Cain_ (_interrupting her_). No, No more of threats: we have had too many of them: Go to our children--I will follow thee. _Adah_. I will not leave thee lonely with the dead-- Let us depart together. _Cain_. Oh! thou dead And everlasting witness! whose unsinking Blood darkens earth and heaven! what thou _now_ art 530 I know not! but if _thou_ seest what _I_ am, I think thou wilt forgive him, whom his God Can ne'er forgive, nor his own soul.--Farewell! I must not, dare not touch what I have made thee. I, who sprung from the same womb with thee, drained The same breast, clasped thee often to my own, In fondness brotherly and boyish, I Can never meet thee more, nor even dare To do that for thee, which thou shouldst have done For me--compose thy limbs into their grave-- 540 The first grave yet dug for mortality. But who hath dug that grave? Oh, earth! Oh, earth! For all the fruits thou hast rendered to me, I Give thee back this.--Now for the wilderness! [ADAH _stoops down and kisses the body of_ ABEL. _Adah_. A dreary, and an early doom, my brother, Has been thy lot! Of all who mourn for thee, I alone must not weep. My office is Henceforth to dry up tears, and not to shed them; But yet of all who mourn, none mourn like me, Not only for thyself, but him who slew thee. 550 Now, Cain! I will divide thy burden with thee. _Cain_. Eastward from Eden will we take our way; 'Tis the most desolate, and suits my steps. _Adah_. Lead! thou shalt be my guide, and may our God Be thine! Now let us carry forth our children. _Cain_. And _he_ who lieth there was childless! I Have dried the fountain of a gentle race, Which might have graced his recent marriage couch, And might have tempered this stern blood of mine, Uniting with our children Abel's offspring! 560 O Abel! _Adah_. Peace be with him! _Cain_. But with _me!_---- [_Exeunt_. FOOTNOTES: