No More Learning

What are your words to them--your grief to them--
Your deaths, indeed, to them? Did the hand pause,
For _their_ sake, in the plucking of the fruit,
That they should pause for _you_, in hating you?
Or will your grief or death, as did your sin,
Bring change upon their final doom? Behold,
Your grief is but your sin in the rebound,
And cannot expiate for it.

_Adam. _ That is true.

_Lucifer. _ Ay, that is true. The clay-king testifies
To the snake's counsel,--hear him! --very true.

_Earth Spirits. _ I wail, I wail!

_Lucifer. _ And certes, _that_ is true.
Ye wail, ye all wail.
Peradventure I
Could wail among you. O thou universe,
That holdest sin and woe,--more room for wail!

_Distant Starry Voice. _ Ah, ah, Heosphoros! Heosphoros!

_Adam. _ Mark Lucifer! He changes awfully.

_Eve. _ It seems as if he looked from grief to God
And could not see him. Wretched Lucifer!

_Adam. _ How he stands--yet an angel!

_Earth Spirits. _ We all wail!

_Lucifer (after a pause).