No More Learning

_Japh. _ I grieve not for myself, nor fear.
I am safe, not for my own deserts, but those 380
Of a well-doing sire, who hath been found
Righteous enough to save his children. Would
His power was greater of redemption! or
That by exchanging my own life for hers,
Who could alone have made mine happy, she,
The last and loveliest of Cain's race, could share
The ark which shall receive a remnant of
The seed of Seth!

_Aho. _ And dost thou think that we,
With Cain's, the eldest born of Adam's, blood
Warm in our veins,--strong Cain! who was begotten 390
In Paradise[152],--would mingle with Seth's children?
Seth, the last offspring of old Adam's dotage?
No, not to save all Earth, were Earth in peril!
Our race hath always dwelt apart from thine
From the beginning, and shall do so ever.

_Japh. _ I did not speak to thee, Aholibamah!
Too much of the forefather whom thou vauntest
Has come down in that haughty blood which springs
From him who shed the first, and that a brother's!
But thou, my Anah!
let me call thee mine, 400
Albeit thou art not; 'tis a word I cannot
Part with, although I must from thee. My Anah!
Thou who dost rather make me dream that Abel
Had left a daughter, whose pure pious race
Survived in thee, so much unlike thou art
The rest of the stem Cainites, save in beauty,
For all of them are fairest in their favour----

_Aho. _ (_interrupting him_).
And would'st thou have her like our father's foe
In mind, in soul? If _I_ partook thy thought,
And dreamed that aught of _Abel_ was in _her_! -- 410
Get thee hence, son of Noah; thou makest strife.

_Japh. _ Offspring of Cain, thy father did so!

_Aho. _ But
He slew not Seth: and what hast thou to do
With other deeds between his God and him?

_Japh. _ Thou speakest well: his God hath judged him, and
I had not named his deed, but that thyself
Didst seem to glory in him, nor to shrink
From what he had done.

_Aho. _ He was our father's father;
The eldest born of man, the strongest, bravest,
And most enduring:--Shall I blush for him 420
From whom we had our being? Look upon
Our race; behold their stature and their beauty,
Their courage, strength, and length of days----

_Japh.