Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 5.djvu/249

Rh Saith that? It is not written so on high: The proud One will not so far falsify, Though man's vast fears and little vanity Would make him cast upon the spiritual nature His own low failing. The snake was the snake— No more; and yet not less than those he tempted, In nature being earth also—more in wisdom, Since he could overcome them, and foreknew The knowledge fatal to their narrow joys. Think'st thou I'd take the shape of things that die?
 * Cain. But the thing had a demon?
 * Lucifer. He but woke one

In those he spake to with his forky tongue. I tell thee that the Serpent was no more Than a mere serpent: ask the Cherubim Who guard the tempting tree. When thousand ages Have rolled o'er your dead ashes, and your seed's, The seed of the then world may thus array Their earliest fault in fable, and attribute To me a shape I scorn, as I scorn all That bows to him, who made things but to bend Before his sullen, sole eternity; But we, who see the truth, must speak it. Thy Fond parents listened to a creeping thing, And fell. For what should spirits tempt them? What Was there to envy in the narrow bounds Of Paradise, that spirits who pervade Space—but I speak to thee of what thou know'st not, With all thy Tree of Knowledge.
 * Cain. But thou canst not

Speak aught of Knowledge which I would not know, And do not thirst to know, and bear a mind To know.
 * Lucifer. And heart to look on?
 * Cain.Be it proved.
 * Lucifer. Darest thou look on Death?
 * Cain.He has not yet

Been seen.
 * Lucifer.But must be undergone.
 * Cain.My father