No More Learning

True, it was more glorious.

_Cain_. And wherefore did it fall?

_Lucifer_. Ask him who fells. [115]

_Cain_. But how?

_Lucifer_. By a most crushing and inexorable 80
Destruction and disorder of the elements,
Which struck a world to chaos, as a chaos
Subsiding has struck out a world: such things,
Though rare in time, are frequent in eternity. --
Pass on, and gaze upon the past.

_Cain_. 'Tis awful!

_Lucifer_. And true. Behold these phantoms!
they were once
Material as thou art.

_Cain_. And must I be
Like them?

_Lucifer_. Let He[116] who made thee answer that.
I show thee what thy predecessors are,
And what they _were_ thou feelest, 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_.