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Cain.
Would they could! but who are they
Shall slay me? Where are these on the lone earth
As yet unpeopled?
Angel.
Thou hast slain thy brother,
And who shall warrant thee against thy son?
Adah. Angel of Light! be merciful, nor say
That this poor aching breast now nourishes
A murderer in my boy, and of his father.

Angel. Then he would but be what his father is.
Did not the milk of Eve give nutriment

To him thou now seest so besmear'd with blood?
The fratricide might well engender parricides.
But it shall not be so the Lord thy God
And mine commandeth me to set His seal
On Cain, so that he may go forth in safety.
Who slayeth Cain, a sevenfold vengeance shall
Be taken on his head. Come hither!

Cain.

Wouldst thou with me?

Angel.

What

To mark upon thy brow

Exemption from such deeds as thou hast done.
Cain. No, let me die!

Angel.

Cain.

It must not be.

[The ANGEL sets the mark on CAIN's brow.

It burns

My brow, but nought to that which is within it.
Is there more? let me meet it as I may.

Angel. Stern hast thou been and stubborn from the womb,
As the ground thou must henceforth till; but he
Thou slew'st was gentle as the flocks he tended.
Cain. After the fall too soon was I begotten;

Ere yet my mother's mind subsided from
The serpent, and my sire still mourn'd for Eden.
That which I am, I am; I did not seek
For life, nor did I make myself; but could I
With my own death redeem him from the dust
And why not so? Let him return to-day,
And I lie ghastly! so shall be restored

By God the life to him He loved; and taken

From me a being I ne'er loved to bear.

Angel. Who shall heal murder? what is done is done; Go forth! fulfil thy days! and be thy deeds

Unlike the last!

Adah.

The ANGEL disappears.

He's gone, let us go forth;

I hear our little Enoch cry within our bower.
Cain. Ah! little knows he what he weeps for!

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And I who have shed blood cannot shed tears!
But the four rivers would not cleanse my soul.
Think'st thou my boy will bear to look on me?
Adah. If I thought that he would not, I would
Cain [interrupting her].

No more of threats: we have had too many of them:
Go to our children; I will follow thee.

Adah. I will not leave thee lonely with the dead;
Let us depart together.

Cain.

Oh! thou dead

And everlasting witness! whose unsinking

Blood darkens earth and heaven! what thou now art

I know not; but if thou seest what I am,

I think thou wilt forgive him, whom his God

Can ne'er forgive, nor his own soul. Farewell!

I must not, dare not touch what I have made thee.
I, who sprang from the same womb with thee, drain'd
The same breast, clasp'd thee often to my own,
In fondness brotherly and boyish, I

Can never meet thee more, nor even dare

To do that for thee, which thou shouldst have done compose thy limbs into their grave

For me

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The first grave yet dug for mortality.

But who hath dug that grave? Oh, earth! Oh, earth!
For all the fruits thou hast render'd to me, I
Give thee back this. Now for the wilderness!

No,

[ADAH stoops down and kisses the body of ABEL..
Adah. A dreary, and an early doom, my brother,
Has been thy lot! Of all who mourn for thee,
I alone must not weep. My office is

Henceforth to dry up tears, and not to shed them;
But yet, of all who mourn, none mourn like me,
Not only for thyself, but him who slew thee.
Now, Cain! I will divide thy burden with thee.

Cain. Eastward from Eden will we take our way:

'Tis the most desolate, and suits my steps.

Adah. Lead! thou shalt be my guide, and may our God Be thine! Now let us carry forth our children.

Cain. And he who lieth there was childless. I

Have dried the fountain of a gentle race,

Which might have graced his recent marriage couch,
And might have temper'd this stern blood of mine,
Uniting with our children Abel's offspring!

O Abel!

Adah. Peace be with him!
Cain.

But with me!

[Exeunt.

13. LETTERS FROM LORD BYRON.

I.

To Mrs. Byron.

My dear Madam,

Athens, January 14, 1811.

I seize an occasion to write as usual, shortly, but frequently, as the arrival of letters, where there exists no regular communication, is, of course, very precarious. I have lately made several small tours of some hundred or two miles about the Morea, Attica, &c., as I have finished my grand giro by the Troad, Constantinople, &c., and am returned down again to Athens. I believe I have mentioned to you more than once that I swam (in imitation of Leander, though without his lady) across the Hellespont, from Sestos to Abydos. Of this, and all other particulars, Fletcher, whom I have sent home with papers, &c., will apprise you. I cannot find that he is any loss; being tolerably master of the Italian and modern Greek languages, which last I am also studying with a master, I can order and discourse more than enough for a reasonable man. Besides, the perpetual lamentations after beef and beer, the stupid, bigoted contempt for every thing foreign, and insurmountable incapacity of acquiring even a few words of any language, rendered him, like all other English servants, an encumbrance. I do assure you, the plague of speaking for him, the comforts he required (more than myself by far), the pilaws (a Turkish dish of rice and meat) which he could not eat, the wines which he could not drink, the beds where he could not sleep, and the long list of calamities, such as stumbling horses, want of tea!!! &c., which assailed him, would have made a lasting source of laughter to a spectator, and inconvenience to a master. After all, the man is honest enough, and, in Christendom, capable enough; but in Turkey, Lord forgive me! my Albanian soldiers, my Tartars and Janissary, worked for him and us too, as my friend Hobhouse can testify.

It is probable I may steer homewards in spring; but to enable me to do that, I must have remittances. At present, I do not care to venture a winter's voyage, even if I were otherwise tired of travelling; but I am so convinced of the advantages of looking at mankind instead of reading about them, and the bitter effects of staying at home with all the narrow prejudices of an islander, that I think there should be a law amongst us, to set our young men abroad, for a term, among the few allies our wars have left us.

Here I see and have conversed with French, Italians,

Germans, Danes, Greeks, Turks, Americans, &c. &c. &c.; and without losing sight of my own, I can judge of the countries and manners of others. Where I see the superiority of England (which, by the bye, we are a good deal mistaken about in many things,) I am pleased, and where I find her inferior, I am at least enlightened. Now, I might have stayed, smoked in your towns, or fogged in your country, a century, without being sure of this, and without acquiring any thing more useful or amusing at home. I keep no journal, nor have I any intention of scribbling my travels. I have done with authorship; and if, in my last production, I have convinced the critics or the world I was something more than they took me for, I am satisfied; nor will I hazard that reputation by a future effort. It is true I have some others in manuscript, but I leave them for those who come after me; and, if deemed worth publishing, they may serve to prolong my memory when I myself shall cease to remember. I have a famous Bavarian artist taking some views of Athens, &c. &c. for me. This will be better than scribbling, a disease I hope myself cured of. I hope, on my return, te lead a quiet, recluse life, but God knows and does best for us all; at least, so they say, and I have nothing to object, as, on the whole, I have no reason to complain of my lot. I am convinced, however, that men do more harm to themselves than ever the devil could do to them. I trust this will find you well, and as happy as we can be; you will, at least, be pleased to hear I am so, and yours ever.

2. To Mr. Moore.

Ravenna, July 5, 1821.

a very only somewhat

I have had a friend of your Mr. Irving's pretty lad a Mr. Coolidge, of Boston too full of poesy and »entusymusy«. I was very civil to him during his few hours' stay, and talked with him much of Irving, whose writings are my delight. But I suspect that he did not take quite so much to me, from his having expected to meet a misanthropical gentleman, in wolf-skin breeches, and answering in fierce monosyllables, instead of a man of this world. I can never get people to understand that poetry is the expression of excited passion, and that there is no such thing as a life of passion any more than a continuous earthquake, or an eternal fever. Besides, who would ever shave themselves in such a state?

I have had a curious letter to-day from a girl in England (I never saw her), who says she is given over of a

decline, but could not go out of the world without thanking me for the delight which my poesy for several years, &c. &c. &c. It is signed simply N. N. A. and has not a word of 'cant' or preachment in it upon any opinions. She merely says that she is dying, and that as I had contributed so highly to her existing pleasure, she thought that she might say so, begging me to burn her letter which, by the way, I can not do, as I look upon such a letter in such circumstances as better than a diploma from Gottingen. I once had a letter from Drontheim, in Norway (but not from a dying woman), in verse, on the same score of gratulation. These are the things which make one at times believe one's self a poet.

3. To Sir Walter Scott, Bart.

My dear Sir Walter,

Pisa, January 12, 1822.

I need not say how grateful I am for your letter, but I must own my ingratitude in not having written to you again long ago. Since I left England I have scribbled to five hundred blockheads on business, &c. without difficulty, though with no great pleasure; and yet, with the notion of addressing you a hundred times in my head, and always in my heart, I have not done what I ought to have done.

I owe to you far more than the usual obligation for the courtesies of literature and common friendship; for you went out of your way in 1817 to do me a service, when it required not merely kindness, but courage to do so: to have been recorded by you in such a manner, would have been a proud memorial at any time, but at such a time when ‘all the world and his wife', as the proverb goes, were trying to trample upon me, was something still higher to my selfesteem, I allude to the Quarterly Review of the Third Canto of Childe Harold, which Murray told me was written by you, and, indeed, I should have known it without his information, as there could not be two who could and would have done this at the time. Had it been a common criticism, however eloquent or panegyrical, I should have felt pleased, undoubtedly, and grateful, but not to the extent which the extraordinary good-heartedness of the whole proceeding must induce in any mind capable of such sensations. The very

tardiness of this acknowledgment will, at least, show that I have not forgotten the obligation; and I can assure you that my sense of it has been out at compound interest during the delay. I shall only add one word upon the subject, which is, that I think that you, and Jeffrey, and Leigh Hunt were

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