in degree 90
Inferior as thy petty feelings and
Thy pettier portion of the immortal part
Of high intelligence and earthly strength.
What ye in common have with what they had
Is Life, and what ye _shall_ have--Death: the rest
Of your poor attributes is such as suits
Reptiles engendered out of the subsiding
Slime of a mighty universe, crushed into
A scarcely-yet shaped planet, peopled with
Things whose enjoyment was to be in blindness-- 100
A Paradise of Ignorance, from which
Knowledge was barred as poison. But behold
What these superior beings are or were;
Or, if it irk thee, turn thee back and till
The earth, thy task--I'll waft thee there in safety.

_Cain_. No: I'll stay here.

_Lucifer_. How long?

_Cain_. For ever! Since
I must one day return here from the earth,
I rather would remain; I am sick of all
That dust has shown me--let me dwell in shadows.

_Lucifer_. It cannot be: thou now beholdest as 110
A vision that which is reality.
To make thyself fit for this dwelling, thou
Must pass through what the things thou seest have passed--
The gates of Death.

_Cain_. By what gate have we entered
Even now?

_Lucifer_. By mine! But, plighted to return,
My spirit buoys thee up to breathe in regions
Where all is breathless save thyself. Gaze on;
But do not think to dwell here till thine hour
Is come!

_Cain_. And these, too--can they ne'er repass
To earth again?

_Lucifer_. _Their_ earth is gone for ever-- 120
So changed by its convulsion, they would not
Be conscious to a single present spot
Of its new scarcely hardened surface--'twas--
Oh, what a beautiful world it _was_!

_Cain_. And is!
It is not with the earth, though I must till it,
I feel at war--but that I may not profit
By what it bears of beautiful, untoiling,
Nor gratify my thousand swelling thoughts
With knowledge, nor allay my thousand fears
Of Death and Life.

_Lucifer_. What thy world is, thou see'st, 130
But canst not comprehend the shadow of
That which it was.

_Cain_. And those enormous creatures,
Phantoms inferior in inte