No More Learning

_ The essence of all beauty, I call love.
The attribute, the evidence, and end,
The consummation to the inward sense,
Of beauty apprehended from without,
I still call love. As form, when colourless,
Is nothing to the eye,--that pine-tree there,
Without its black and green, being all a blank,--
So, without love, is beauty undiscerned
In man or angel. Angel! rather ask
What love is in thee, what love moves to thee,
And what collateral love moves on with thee;
Then shalt thou know if thou art beautiful.

_Lucifer. _ Love! what is love? I lose it. Beauty and love
I darken to the image. Beauty--love!

[_He fades away, while a low music sounds. _

_Adam. _ Thou art pale, Eve.

_Eve.
_ The precipice of ill
Down this colossal nature, dizzies me:
And, hark! the starry harmony remote
Seems measuring the heights from whence he fell.

_Adam. _ Think that we have not fallen so! By the hope
And aspiration, by the love and faith,
We do exceed the stature of this angel.

_Eve. _ Happier we are than he is, by the death.

_Adam. _ Or rather, by the life of the Lord God!
How dim the angel grows, as if that blast
Of music swept him back into the dark.

[_The music is stronger, gathering itself into uncertain articulation_

_Eve. _ It throbs in on us like a plaintive heart,
Pressing, with slow pulsations, vibrative,
Its gradual sweetness through the yielding air,
To such expression as the stars may use,
Most starry-sweet and strange! With every note
That grows more loud, the angel grows more dim,
Receding in proportion to approach,
Until he stand afar,--a shade.

_Adam. _ Now, words.


SONG OF THE MORNING STAR TO LUCIFER.