Thou hast laboured not
This morn; but I have done thy task: the fruits
Are ripe, and glowing as the light which ripens:
Come away.

_Cain_. Seest thou not?

_Adah_. I see an angel; 340
We have seen many: will he share our hour
Of rest?--he is welcome.

_Cain_. But he is not like
The angels we have seen.

_Adah_. Are there, then, others?
But he is welcome, as they were: they deigned
To be our guests--will he?

_Cain_ (_to Lucifer_). Wilt thou?

_Lucifer_. I ask
Thee to be mine.

_Cain_. I must away with him.

_Adah_. And leave us?

_Cain_. Aye.

_Adah_. And _me_?

_Cain_. Beloved Adah!

_Adah_. Let me go with thee.

_Lucifer_. No, she must not.

_Adah_. Who
Art thou that steppest between heart and heart?

_Cain_. He is a God.

_Adah_. How know'st thou?

_Cain_. He speaks like 350
A God.

_Adah_. So did the Serpent, and it lied.

_Lucifer_. Thou errest, Adah!--was not the Tree that
Of Knowledge?

_Adah_. Aye--to our eternal sorrow.

_Lucifer_. And yet that grief is knowledge--so he lied not:
And if he did betray you, 'twas with Truth;
And Truth in its own essence cannot be
But good.

_Adah_. But all we know of it has gathered
Evil on ill; expulsion from our home,
And dread, and toil, and sweat, and heaviness;
Remorse of that which was--and hope of that 360
Which cometh not. Cain! walk not with this Spirit.
Bear with what we have borne, and love me--I
Love thee.

_Lucifer_. More than thy mother, and thy sire?

_Adah_. I do. Is that a sin, too?

_Lucifer_. No, not yet;
It one day will be in your children.

_Adah_. What!
Must not my daughter love her brother Enoch?

_Lucifer_. Not as thou lovest Cain.

_Adah_. Oh, my God!
Shall they not love and bring forth things that love
Out of their love? have they not drawn their milk
Out of this bosom? was not he, their father,