No More Learning

I knew not
This until lately--but since it must be,
Let me, or happy or unhappy, learn
To anticipate my immortality.

_Lucifer_. Thou didst before I came upon thee.

_Cain_. How?

_Lucifer_. By suffering.

_Cain_. And must torture be immortal?

_Lucifer_. We and thy sons will try. But now, behold!
Is it not glorious?

_Cain_. Oh thou beautiful
And unimaginable ether!
and
Ye multiplying masses of increased 100
And still-increasing lights! what are ye? what
Is this blue wilderness of interminable
Air, where ye roll along, as I have seen
The leaves along the limpid streams of Eden?
Is your course measured for ye? Or do ye
Sweep on in your unbounded revelry
Through an aerial universe of endless
Expansion--at which my soul aches to think--
Intoxicated with eternity[113]?
Oh God! Oh Gods! or whatsoe'er ye are! 110
How beautiful ye are! how beautiful
Your works, or accidents, or whatsoe'er
They may be! Let me die, as atoms die,
(If that they die), or know ye in your might
And knowledge! My thoughts are not in this hour
Unworthy what I see, though my dust is;
Spirit! let me expire, or see them nearer.

_Lucifer_. Art thou not nearer? look back to thine earth!