_Lucifer_. Away, then! on our mighty wings!

_Cain_. Oh! how we cleave the blue! The stars fade from us!
The earth! where is my earth? Let me look on it,
For I was made of it.

_Lucifer_. 'Tis now beyond thee,
Less, in the universe, than thou in it;
Yet deem not that thou canst escape it; thou
Shalt soon return to earth, and all its dust:
'Tis part of thy eternity, and mine. 150

_Cain_. Where dost thou lead me?

_Lucifer_. To what was before thee!
The phantasm of the world; of which thy world
Is but the wreck.

_Cain_. What! is it not then new?

_Lucifer_. No more than life is; and that was ere thou
Or _I_ were, or the things which seem to us
Greater than either: many things will have
No end; and some, which would pretend to have
Had no beginning, have had one as mean
As thou; and mightier things have been extinct
To make way for much meaner than we can 160
Surmise; for _moments_ only and the _space_
Have been and must be all _unchangeable_.
But changes make not death, except to clay;
But thou art clay--and canst but comprehend
That which was clay, and such thou shall behold.

_Cain_. Clay--Spirit--what thou wilt--I can survey.

_Lucifer_. Away, then!

_Cain_. But the lights fade from me fast,
And some till now grew larger as we approached,
And wore the look of worlds.

_Lucifer_. And such they are.

_Cain_. And Edens in them?

_Lucifer_. It may be.

_Cain_. And men? 170

_Lucifer_. Yea, or things higher.

_Cain_. Aye! and serpents too?[cf]

_Lucifer_. Wouldst thou have men without them? must no reptiles
Breathe, save the erect ones?

_Cain_. How the lights recede!
Where fly we?

_Lucifer_. To the world of phantoms, which
Are beings past, and shadows still to come.

_Cain_. But it grows dark, and dark--the stars are gone!

_Lucifer_. And yet thou seest.

_Cain_. 'Tis a fearful light!
No sun--no moon--no lights innumerable--
The very blue of the empurpled night
Fades to a dreary twilight--yet I see 180