No More Learning

For what should spirits tempt them? What
Was there to envy in the narrow bounds
Of Paradise, that spirits who pervade
Space----but I speak to thee of what thou know'st not,
With all thy Tree of Knowledge.

_Cain_. But thou canst not
Speak aught of Knowledge which I would not know,
And do not thirst to know, and bear a mind
To know.

_Lucifer_. And heart to look on?

_Cain_. Be it proved.

_Lucifer_. Darest thou look on Death?

_Cain_. He has not yet 250
Been seen.

_Lucifer_. But must be undergone.

_Cain_.
My father
Says he is something dreadful, and my mother
Weeps when he's named; and Abel lifts his eyes
To Heaven, and Zillah casts hers to the earth,
And sighs a prayer; and Adah looks on me,
And speaks not.

_Lucifer_. And thou?

_Cain_. Thoughts unspeakable
Crowd in my breast to burning, when I hear
Of this almighty Death, who is, it seems,
Inevitable. Could I wrestle with him?
I wrestled with the lion, when a boy, 260
In play, till he ran roaring from my gripe.

_Lucifer_. It has no shape; but will absorb all things
That bear the form of earth-born being.

_Cain_. Ah!
I thought it was a being: who could do
Such evil things to beings save a being?

_Lucifer_. Ask the Destroyer.

_Cain_. Who?