Page:The poems of George Eliot (Crowell, 1884).djvu/305

 THE LEGEND OF JUBAL.

HEN Cain was driven from Jehovah's land

He wandered eastward, seeking some far strand

Ruled by kind gods who asked no offerings

Save pure field-fruits, as aromatic things,

To feed the subtler sense of frames divine

That lived on fragrance for their food and wine:

Wild joyous gods, who winked at faults and folly,

And could be pitiful and melancholy.

He never had a doubt that such gods were;

He looked within, and saw them mirrored there.

Some think he came at last to Tartary,

And some to Ind; but, howsoe'er it be,

His staff he planted where sweet waters ran,

And in that home of Cain the Arts began.

Man's life was spacious in the early world:

It paused, like some slow ship with sail unfurled

Waiting in seas by scarce a wavelet curled;

Beheld the slow star-paces of the skies,

And grew from strength to strength through centuries;

Saw infant trees fill out their giant limbs,

And heard a thousand times the sweet bird's marriage hymns.

In Cain's young city none had heard of Death

Save him, the founder; and it was his faith

That here, away from harsh Jehovah's law,

Man was immortal, since no halt or flaw

In Cain's own frame betrayed six hundred years,