University of Virginia Library

ACT II

GENESIS

CHAPTER IV

[OMITTED]

3. And in process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord.

4. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering;

5. But unto Cain and to this offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.

6. And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?

7. If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. ...

8. And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.

A broad level of naked rock at the extreme summit of a high mountain. No vegetation nor any sign of life whatever. At the back the mountain falls away in a sheer precipice. In the immense distance below and beyond stretches a vast panorama of forest, field and stream, warm and tranquil thro' the golden haze of late afternoon. In the foreground is a low platform of stone about twenty feet square with three broad stone steps leading up to it. On the platform stands a sort of sacrificial stone or table of offerings. The splendid light of the low sun inundates the summit of the mountain and lies, windless and warm, across the altar.

Time: late afternoon of the same day which dawned in Act I.

CAIN enters by a path ascending from the valley. He bears in his hands fruit, grain, and two small jars containing oil and wine. He places his burden on the ground near the raised platform, and, seating himself on a boulder, surveys the immense prospect spread beneath him.

CAIN
I am gone sky-ward to the uttermost—
Tacit and distant as life's thought of death
Earth lies beneath me patterned with sheer hills,
Deserts and forest-marches, flashing streams
And sea-scapes vast beyond the power of vision.
Its charted levels, whelmed beneath the dumb
Cycles and tides of lucent sapphire, seem
A sea-floor tufted with gigantic weeds,
Virgin of tumult or the tread and travel
Of restless feet; yet fruitful streams, I know,
Go seaward voiced with endless melody,
Twilight is plaintive with the cries of birds,
Dim forests murmur soft as sleep, and all
The myriads of life are musical!
No whisper lifts,—the light is deep and dumb.
As one sequestered in the tower of thought
I stand aloof from restless strife and sound,
Withdrawn beyond the fellowship of life.
Solitude, silence and tranquillity,
Immensity of elemental things,—
Haply in you at last the soul finds room,
And liberty and light haply in you!
It may be,—aging with the passionate seasons
On earth's maternal breast,—that life becomes
Too much a lyric enterprise, too wrought
With dreams and great desires and deep surmise,
Too dazed with motion and magnificence.
There, in the press and pride and longing of life,
Haply the captive soul is leashed and lulled;
Yet whiles, even in the ruck of the swift hours,
Sentient of twilights and infinities!
But here is refuge: silence, unperturbed,
Broods on these battlements of lifeless stone
Reared like an isle from life's tempestuous sea.
Regioned in light and loneliness, the soul
May, in the all-reflecting glass of truth,
Confront with eyes insatiable of light
The revelations of eternity.
Here might at last divinely be fulfilled
All spiritual indications to the soul
From rapt communion with the silent stars,
That still by night their endless vigil keep
On the vague frontiers of infinity.
Here might the thought of time, the thought of death,
The wonder and desire of deathless things
Yield to the soul their last significance.
Here might the mystery of God be solved!
He pauses, staring before him over the immense prospect where the light deepens.
I know at last all shall be lived, endured—
All shall at last find mansions in the soul;
And then—then shall the soul be satisfied?
O restless voyager, where is thy rest?
Is there a haven for thine enterprise,
A goal for thine adventure and a term
For thine infinity?—Imagination,
Daring the intervals of pathless gloom
From star to star of thought, falls broken-winged!
Yet are the days of life occasional
Of truth's divine discovery,—and soul
Shall at the last accept no less than truth!

A pause. CAIN gazes before him, lost in thought. Then, ascending from below, the voice of Abel is heard singing.
The voice of ABEL

ABEL, bearing in his arms a lamb, enters and appears face to face with CAIN.
CAIN
Abel—Abel—

ABEL
Cain—

CAIN
Abel—alone—
So far—

ABEL
My feet have striven to this sheer height
Led by the luminous spirit of piety;
I bear the innocent firstling of my flocks
Here to God's altar as a thanksgiving
Of all my heart for his beneficence!
My mood perchance is thine: creation stirs
To new conception; earth's reviving green
Moves the meek heart to praise the Lord of Life
With songs and seasonable sacrifice.

CAIN
Thy mood is alien to my thoughts of God
And all my visions of human destiny.
I bring no tribute—

ABEL
Nay!—a eucharist!
Is it not very spacious and most fair
This parcel of God's potent handiwork
Held by the sons of man in heritage?
Is it not generous of all pleasantness
And fruitful for the hunger of life's days?
Then, to the Heavenly Artisan who severed
Darkness from light, shaped systems from the void,
Wafted the breath of life thro' lifeless clay,—
How else to Him can man glance heavenward
Save with mild eyes of adoration? How
Climb to his footstool save in grateful praise?

CAIN
God knows no gratitude of mine shall fail
Where such is due. God knows when face to face
I meet my creditor, no debt he proves
Shall wait for payment. Now, till then, I stand
Fettered by no more than my bounds of thought,
Slave to such fears and passions as obscure
Soul's truth and chill the headlong heart of faith,—
Yet, in conception, strong, supreme, and free!

ABEL
Why has this violence of self, this stern
Defiance diseased thy soul with doubt and pride?
The days of life bring one by one their treasure
Of simple toil and simple happiness—
Desires, right deeds, endurance, joy and pain,
With over all the shelter of God's wise will!
Forego thy search: God is a mystery.
Now, while the last light lingers heavenward,
Let me fulfill my sacrifice: my soul
Lies on God's breast,—my trust is all in Him.

ABEL ascends the steps to the raised platform, still carrying the lamb in his arms. He sets the lamb down and heaps some fuel on the sacrificial stone. Then he stands before it facing the deep light of sunset.
CAIN
to himself as he watches Abel
His face is young and tranquil as a child's:
All seems surpassing well with him,—his eyes
Shine with calm rapture, innocent of thought.
Meek trust, simplicity and tenderness—
I must believe his soul is satisfied,—
Filled with a crust!—and I who starve, who starve!
O tireless voyager! O soul of me!
Captain, my soul!—shall we not better rest?
See, where a mansion in the House of Life
Waits our repentance, and a candle burns
Still thro' the casement—yea, tho' faint and far,
The firelight of contentment lures us back!
Shall we not better pause, return,—forget
Our desperate quest beyond the heedless stars?
Shall we not better live forevermore
Passionless by the threshold, lulled in sleep,
Like children sheltered in the Father-house?

ABEL
The golden sandals of reluctant day
Climb the broad shoulders of the heavenward hills.
Earth fills with darkness like a shallow bowl
And sleep weighs down the weary lids of life.
O peace of God, vigil of God's great love,
I feel you now, in vast serenity,
Brood like a benediction on the world!

CAIN
still to himself
No more the ecstasy and the pangs of thought,
No more the tempest's threat, the perilous plunge
And shoreless vision of blind uncharted seas
Where soul must wander years and lives and æons
Seeking the undiscoverable truth!
Captain, my soul,—shall we not better rest?

ABEL strikes fire and lights the fuel upon the altar. He throws on the flames myrrh and frankincense; a dense smoke arises. Then he raises the lamb in his arms and at the same moment draws a knife from his belt.
ABEL
Being whose thoughts are destiny: whose power
Chains the rebellious, tames the passionate;
Whose justice spares the suppliant soul and damns
The soul of pride,—Almighty God, to Thee
Ascend my pæan and prayer and thanksgiving!
Father of Life, accept thy creature; Lord,
Master, receive thy faithful servant Abel!
I ask with contrite heart and will subdued
The dispensation of thy charity!
Suffer this fire and incense may be blessed;
This living sacrifice be sanctified
With thine acceptance!
ABEL cuts the throat of the lamb and lets the warm blood pour out on the sacrificial stone.
I beseech Thee guard
My frailty, fill my heart with thy desire,
Fashion my will to thine intention, take
Temptation from me of my mortal strength,
And pride of thought,—my hope is all in Thee!

ABEL falls on his knees beside the altar and remains lost in rapture. CAIN springs to his feet.
CAIN
Shine! Shine! passionate light of Liberty!
Blow outward winds! lift the wide wings of thought
Reckless and blind against the night! and you,
Monotonous thunder of the shoreless seas,
Sound thro' long vistas to the sleepless soul!
Rouse, heart benumbed, the lethargy is passed!
Spirit dismayed, the spell is shattered, wake!
Athlete of Freedom, rend the silken fetters
That well-nigh bound thy nerveless sinews fast!
O Heart, how near we stooped to infamy!
Now and forever the supreme choice is made,
The die is cast! Never shall I behold,
Turning a backward glance from truth's endeavour,
The firelight of content, the lamp of fear
Flickering behind the clouded panes of thought,
The guarded threshold of the House of Sleep!
Forward I set my steadfast eyes! Haste! haste!
Captain, my soul! we shall return no more!
Cut the last strands of weakness and despair
That bound our vessel to the shores of safety!
I hear the singing of all the spacious seas
Of truth's supreme adventure and at last
Take the deep vistas with a homeless eye!
CAIN advances rapidly, seizes the grain, wine and oil which he had deposited on the ground and mounts the steps to the platform. There he pauses a moment, looking down upon ABEL, who is still on his knees in a sort of quiet ecstasy.
Man! and so abject! yet my heart is love—
So young he seems, so tender like a child!
Abel!

ABEL
Who calls me?

CAIN
Rise! for I am Cain,
First of the Sons of Man!

ABEL
O rouse me not!
God's peace enfolds me—

CAIN
Rise!

ABEL
What is thy will?

ABEL rises to his feet still a little dazed by the rapture of his meditations.
CAIN
Knowest thou me?

ABEL
Why are thine eyes so strange?

CAIN
Knowest thou me?

ABEL
Thou art my brother Cain—

CAIN
First of the sons of man!

ABEL
What is thy will?

CAIN
Abel, as we are men, I love thee!

ABEL
Cain,
As God is Love, I love thee.

CAIN
All my will
Is thy redemption—

ABEL
My redemption?

CAIN
Man!
I will redeem thee from thine abject state,
Strike the vile fetters from thy fearful feet,
And set thee in the path of liberty!

ABEL
Liberty?

CAIN
I have lifted the large light,
Near to destruction; it shall shine as fire
Flashing by night, and there where nothing was
Save darkness where imagined spectres stalked,
Visions of God and man's divinity,
Grown to perfection thro' ascending lives,
Shall smite thy breathless soul with wonder!

ABEL
Cain!

CAIN
Liberty!—See!—God stands before thee now
Real and majestic! Thou shalt understand
How much thy cowardice has wronged him; Man,
Thou hast defiled his name! Thy prayers invoke
Some wrathful demon, not the Soul of Light!
Repent thy prayers, thy prayers were blasphemy!

ABEL
Cain!

CAIN
Hear me—

ABEL
Blasphemy?

CAIN
God is not Lord
Of slaves nor tyrant pleased with abject fears,
Pæans and sacrifice: God sheds his grace
And shares his fellowship for men, not slaves!
Men who are sinewed with sublime resolve,
Whom perfect faith has made insatiable,
Whose eyes pursue, star over star, the last
Outpost of knowledge in the skies of thought!
Pilgrims of pathless lands, whom neither walls
Nor slumber nor the arms of love can hold;
Mariners who depart on shoreless seas
Avid of new horizons in the vast
Unknown!—O men, homeless and lonely men,
For you, for you the fellowship of God!

ABEL
Thine is the blasphemy! Beware! The Lord
Hath said, “Vengeance is mine!”

CAIN
Thy words are wild.
Vengeance? Why vengeance? Shall I dare to fear
The Truth?—O man! are we not torch-bearers?

ABEL
Beware! we are but men and God is God!

CAIN
What then? Divinity is here, not there!
O Soul, God is not otherwise than thou.
And thou art God, O soul, spirit divine!
Words that defile nor body nor soul of me
Defile not God! He is what I shall be,
I am what he has been! Hours, days, years,
Centuries, cycles, æons,—I shall pass
At last to where he waits and longs for me!

CAIN strides to the altar and pours on the failing fire his oil and wine. At once the fire flames brightly and a dense column of smoke mounts straight into the windless air. Then CAIN scatters his grain upon the altar. Meanwhile ABEL, dazed and scared, shrinks farther and farther away toward the steps.
CAIN
To You, Spirit Divine! O Soul of Life,
Denizen of this tenement! O God,
Captain of life's adventure, Self and Soul,
Immortal Master of this mortal house!
To You, for moments of eternity;
To You, for Truth's sublime discoveries;
To You, for revelations still to come,
Visions unseen, unknown infinities,—
To You this invocation and to You
This ecstasy and solemn sacrifice!

CAIN stands, transported with rapture, his face lifted and flushed with the firelight. Suddenly darkness falls, thunder peals, there comes a violent gust of wind, and

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the column of smoke from CAIN'S sacrifice is bent and blown straight back in his face. He recoils a step.
The voice of GOD
Rejected!

ABEL shrieks and stumbles backward down the steps of the platform. At the bottom he falls on his knees and bows his head to the ground.
ABEL
Grace!—Forgiveness!—Mercy!—Mercy!

CAIN
Give me breath!—I am stunned!

The voice of GOD
Rejected!

ABEL
God! O God!
My God!—be merciful! be merciful!

CAIN
Who cries, “Rejected?”

ABEL
God!

The Voice of GOD
Rejected!

CAIN
Speak!
Answer!—Who dares reject the soul of Cain?
I am the Son of Man—who dares reject me?

ABEL
Cain—Cain!

CAIN
Who dares reject me?

The Voice of GOD
I am God!
Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?
If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?
And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door!

Immediately the wind falls, the sudden darkness lifts, disclosing ABEL prostrate on the ground at the foot of the steps leading to the platform, and CAIN standing, erect and menacing, by the sacrificial stone. Below, the immense panorama of the earth is covered with the shadows of early night. The fire on the altar is extinguished and the scene is illumined only by the last dark flush of sunset which still lingers on the summit

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of the mountain. The deep violet of the skies is spangled with ripe stars. The silence and the stillness are unbroken.
CAIN
God's voice!—Rejected!—Cain, the Son of Man,
Rejected!—Man, rejected and man's soul
Utterly lost from God's acceptance!—Then—
Hope whored with Fancy and begot a—dream!
So was my soul deceived!—Rejected!—Hear me,
Infinite, voiceless, elemental airs,
Pathless, inviolable firmament!
Hear me, ethereal solitudes, untrod
Save by the bare and soundless feet of light!
Hear me, O cosmic fellowship of stars,
Stainless as children's eyes; majestic suns
And far-flung systems of coherent orbs!
Hear me, O sun, creative lord of light!
Hear me, O moon, mistress of chaunting tides!
Hear me, dead snows of desolate mountain-peaks,
Robing the tragic shapes of cliff and crag!
Hear me, resistless sea and fruitful earth,
Theatre of life and death!—O earth and sea
Of graves and resurrections, toil and sleep!
Hear me, O Heart, O passionate Heart of Life!
Hear me, Immortal Heart! And hear me, you,
All in whose veins the pulse of life abounds!
And you, Abel! Abel!—O Son of Man,
Hear me! Hear me! Hear me!—now and forever
I make you witness to this monstrous deed—
God has rejected Cain, the Son of Man!

ABEL
God of stern justice and resistless wrath!

CAIN
Justice?—No justice moves this fierce revenge!

ABEL
God's will is justice!—Desperate rebel, yield!
Hast thou not suffered of all thy sinful pride?
Shall not the power of God constrain thy heart?
Measure thy peril,—be contrite or despair!

CAIN
Never! I will not yield nor yet despair!
Must we despair?—Respond, rejected Soul!
Faith cheated, love deceived, fond hopes betrayed,
By God denied—must we despair? Respond!
Where's justice?—light?—refuge?—Thought reels! The rod
Strikes fire from flint—beneath the blows of wrath
Fierce doubts and perilous questions leap like sparks,
Flashing within me! Reckless Soul, respond!
Who is the God who dares reject me? Who
Art thou, Spirit Divine?

ABEL
Repent! Repent!
Lest worse befall thee!

CAIN
God rejects me!—Now,
As one who falls in fight and then at dawn
Wakes on the stricken field as life returns
Spent and delirious from the peril of death,
And so, nerved with faint hope, numbers his wounds,—
So I, from fear and dire amazement roused,
Question my peril and count my injuries:
How have I suffered? Where have I suffered? Speak!
Body and soul seem scatheless—life remains—
Where are my wounds?—I feel them not! My strength
Is whole! Where are my wounds? Where are my wounds?
I swear, I swear nothing is lost!—All's well!
Captain, my soul, despair is not for thee!
Thou shalt behold the seals of darkness lift,
Weather the wrathful tempest and at last,
Resolute, onward, headlong, dazed and scarred,
Reel thro' the gates of Truth's enormous dawn!

ABEL
Madman! Beware!—Thy hope is weaved of dreams;
Damnable dreams to cheat the will of God;
Pitiful dreams, proud dreams, fantastic lies!

CAIN
Abel!

ABEL
Repent!—if still repentance serves,
Repent!—the mercy of God is infinite
To all who bring his favoured sacrifice—
A contrite, humble and obedient heart!

CAIN
Truth, not forgiveness, I demand of God,
Justice, not mercy, love, not charity!
I was not fashioned to bewail my sins,
I was not born for safe obedience!
I bring not peace among you but a sword!

ABEL
Cain—for thy life's sake, Cain, repent!

CAIN
No more!
Silence!—Ask me no more!—I feel at last
The breath of light, frail and portentous!—Wake!
It dawns, rejected Soul!—The secret yields!
I have been stunned! And now—Light!—Now, suddenly
Shadows shall fade, veils lift—I shall discover
One of the meanings!—Now—at last, at last,
I understand!—Creation—Paradise—
The immortal fruit—Mother, thy gorgeous deed!
O revelations! O discoveries!
Measureless light at last! The truth at last!
Enlightenment!—All's well! The sacred fire
Of liberty still burns!—Man is redeemed!

ABEL
Lost! Lost! Utterly lost, body and soul!
Accursed! Accursed!

CAIN
Now God's dominion ends!

ABEL
Accursed! Accursed!

CAIN
Now man's abasement ends!
For now the power and wrath and terrour of God
Fade like false phantoms in the light,—the light!
God is dethroned and man resumes the crown,
Regains the sceptre of divinity!

ABEL
Pitiful madman!

CAIN
Peace!—despair and fear
Are ghosts that haunt the night of ignorance;
Dwellers in darkness of the immense unknown;
Phantoms that lurk where thought's horizons blur,
Where the vague shores of knowledge quake to feel
Tumult and thunder of the seas beyond!

ABEL
Merciful God, pity him—he is mad!
Pity and spare him!

CAIN
Peace!—God's power is lost!
The ghastly tyranny of fear no more
Shall bind the spirit of man in servitude!
How can our faith be less than perfect now?
All that awaits us shall be well, as all
That is and has been in surpassing well!
Measure thy scope and grasp thy heritage,
Captain, my Soul!—Perchance not God alone
Shall fade and vanish as the large light expands.
It may be, haply, that at last in thine
Infinite waking life itself shall prove
A passionate dream and death a tranquil sleep!

ABEL
Silence, distracted soul!—Can God condone
When I condemn thee as I must? Thou sayest
Such frantic words of peril and deadly sin
As no conception of my brain can grasp
Nor all my love forgive!

CAIN
O man, rejoice!
Now thou shalt understand—at last, at last,
All shall be clear and steadfast in thy soul.
Purge from thy brain the sickness of strange fears:
My cause is pregnant of new liberties:
Hear me in peace and be my justicer.
How I have thought ineffably of God
And stretched the vistas of all my hopes to him,
God knows and thy remembrance certifies.
Much I believed that Truth's immortal seed,
Lost or unfruitful in the soul of man,
Was, in the spirit of God, by love and light,
Brought to its perfect flower—infinity.
God was to me a star of quenchless rays
Guiding my soul thro' time from life to life,
Training my vision to glimpse eternity!
God was to me the breast where all may weep,
The eyes where all may find the immortal light,
The hand that all may clasp, the heart of hearts,
The spirit of passionate faith and liberty,—
The tenant of the heavenly father-house,
Waiting with arms of welcome wide for all!
Such were my visions, such were my thoughts of God—
Yet God rejects me! See! the monstrous deed
Aches for interpretation. What is God,
God who rejects so pure an ecstasy?
Witness!—the crucial secret must be solved!
Spirit finds answer—thou shalt hear and learn,
Partner in man's inheritance with man.
God who rejects me and betrays my hope;
God who denies me and deceives my faith,
Cheats my desire and scorns my exalted love;
God, who with peace and pleasure and loveliness,
Fashioned the marvellous gardens of Paradise,
Sating man's senses to debauch his soul;
God, whose despair,—when Eve, with sacred thirst,
Gathered and shared the fruit whereof all men
Must eat who seek the soul's enlightenment,—
Drew from his lips the cry: “Behold the man
Is even as God, knowing both good and evil!”
God, who in passion and fear and frenzy smote
Man's disobedience and his dignity;
God, who would hold the heart enslaved with fear,
Stifle the sacred fire with ignorance,
Leash the proud soul with duty and content,
Obedience and remorseful cowardice,—
God is not liberty but law, not love
But mercy, not redemption but despair;
Not joy but lethargy and meek content,
Not grief's robust acknowledgment of wrong
But abject lamentation and remorse,
Not justice but forgiveness or revenge,
Not strength but safety, not the change of growth,
Fluid unrest of free development,
But rules and customs and establishments,
Limits and lies—the servitude of man!
So even is God and God's significance!
But Lo! at last man wakes and stands and strives!
Liberty!—Light!—Thy deed was not in vain,
Mother! Thy womb has not engendered slaves!

ABEL, still on his knees, has listened to CAIN with steadily growing terrour. By this time his fear and amazement, his conviction of Cain's utter lunacy, have become, as it were, a shield which neither the shafts of persuasion nor reason nor truth can penetrate. He is, in a word, panic-stricken. Staring at CAIN, he backs away from him on his knees.
ABEL
almost in whisper
Blasphemy!

CAIN
By the breast that gave thee suck,
Abel, my brother, I adjure thee rise!
Rise and rejoice! I bring thee liberty;
For truth is liberty and nought but truth!
Never again thy knees shall cringe; thy heart
Never again shall feel the fear of God!
Body and Soul are real and perfect—rise!

ABEL
as before
Blasphemy!

CAIN
Lo! men are we—Gods in germ!
The earth is real, steadfast beneath our feet,
The spacious vision of light is in our eyes,
And over us the dark void is fathomless.
Under the skies' pavilion, gemmed with stars,
On earth's exhaustless breast the flesh can feel
The chill and challenge and mystic hush of dawn,
The careless largess of the luminous days,
The vast of night, the fragrant shadows of sleep,
The task, the triumph, the constant truth of life,
And death's eventual tranquillity!
Yea, even when flesh dissolves in final change
Still may it feel the growth of flowers and still
Serve the insatiable desire of life!
While Soul with passionless and immortal eyes,
Sleepless and strained to glimpse eternity,
Thro' endless time, ascending avatars,
Keeps way and vista to the throne of God
And thence beyond to new infinities!
Finding no goal it shall not reach and pass
And no supremacy it may not share!
Rise! rise!—Ours is the choice, be ours the will!
Body and soul we cannot be denied!

ABEL
as before
So spake the serpent in the golden glades,
So spake the Demon in the ears of Eve—
Blasphemy!
To CAIN
Ask me no more! I'll hear no more!

CAIN
Abel!

ABEL
Be still, lest God should strike thee dumb!

CAIN
Abel!

ABEL
Silence! No more! My heart is sick,
My brain withers!—O God!—Delirious fool,
Dost thou not know that should my soul forget
The fear, the power, the sovereignty of God,
Then would the mercy of God, the might of God
Shelter and guide and comfort me no more?

CAIN
Abel!—art thou so blind, so abject? Man,
Truth is thy guide, thy light is liberty!
What need of shelter where no harm impends?
What need of comfort where no fears assail?
Safety alone is perilous and fear
Only is fearful!

ABEL
So was Eve destroyed!

CAIN
It cannot be thou art so pitiable—
It cannot be!

ABEL
So was perfection lost!

CAIN
It cannot be!—Wake from thy trance! the flood
Of light shall whelm thee suddenly; Truth shall rise,
Strange as a distant land-fall made at dawn,
Pure and transcendent in thy darkened ken!
Where's the disaster, where's the ruinous loss,
The peril thy scared imagination fears?
Speak!

ABEL
Art thou mad? If God's protection fails
Where is security and rest and peace?
Lacking God's grace what more is left for man
Than misery, want, alarm, and loneliness?
Always the outcast from the favour of God
Must feel the agony of a ceaseless dread
Of life and death consume his happiness.
I shudder in the mere thought!

CAIN
It cannot be!
Turn from thy cowardice and childish fears!
For whosoever will save his life shall lose it;
But whosoever shall lose his life for truth
And liberty, the same shall save his life!
What shall it profit thee if thy life is gained
And all the splendour of all the world beside
If soul is lost? What shall it profit thee
To live sheltered in comfort and content,
If thou must yield the soul's inheritance
To alien government and forego thy crown,
Forfeit thy power and pawn thy liberty?
Nothing without can harm or comfort thee;
Peril and joy come only from within!
Thine is the venture!—seek and thou shalt find,
Clasped in the soul's horizons, life and death,
Divinity and power and destiny;
For in thyself superb attainment lies,
Fair in the paths of hope, the range of faith!
Thou art the way, thou art the wayfarer,
Thou art the guide, the goal, the pilgrimage!
Seeking and finding in itself alone,
Thy soul must bear the labour and tears of life,
And feel the passion and gain the glory of love,
And find the eternal thought, the perfect faith,
The courage of truth's unconquerable hope!
All that we know to-day is ours to-day,
And all unknown to-morrow shall be ours!

ABEL
Better that I should leave thee! I can bear
No more! My brain shudders to hear thee speak,
As God shakes in his wrath, knowing thy soul!
Better that I should leave thee—veil on veil,
Darkness is fallen between us utterly:
Now are we strangers who were joined in love!
Better that I should leave thee!—Go thy ways;
Gather the harvest that thy sins have sown!
I can endure no more!

CAIN
A heart so tame,
A brain so chilled with fear, such vile disgrace,
Sorts with the bastard of a soulless slave,
Not with an offspring from the womb of Eve!
O man!—Abel!

ABEL
I'll hear no more—

He turns away.
CAIN
The truth
Shines like a watch-fire and thou wilt not see;
Sounds like a clarion and thou wilt not hear!
Why art thou deaf and blind?

ABEL
I'll stay no more!

He takes a step as tho' to depart.
CAIN
What, must I teach at last these lips of mine
Kissed by thy lips so oft, to call thee slave,
Coward and traitor?—Child of Eve's rebellion,
Abel, art thou a man?

ABEL
turning upon him fiercely
A man I am,
Of God's creation and the child of God!
Much have I heard thy madness rave and rant,
Long have I borne thy blasphemies,—but now,
Better that I should leave thee!

He turns resolutely to depart.
CAIN
Abel! Abel!
Abel!—Thou wearest the semblance of a man,—
The speech, the form, the function!—Leave me? Thou?
Knowest thou me?—I am thy brother, Cain!
How canst thou leave me?—Paradise was lost
That we might live and reap the harvest of life!
How canst thou leave me while the selfsame blood
Throbs in our hearts and thrills our limbs with strength?
Are we not men together, you and I?
Are we not men?

ABEL
As God is God!—Farewell!

Again ABEL takes a step to depart.
CAIN
Abel!

ABEL pursues his way without turning or answering CAIN'S desperate cry.
CAIN
Must I believe? In bitter truth
Art thou so vile, so abject?—Then, farewell!
Leave me! my heart is sick to know thy shame!
Leave me!—my soul abhors thine infamy!
Leave me!

CAIN covers his face with his hands.
ABEL
Farewell!

ABEL moves away. CAIN takes his hands from his eyes and stands, stirless, watching him depart. His face is haggard.
CAIN.
Weep, for a soul is lost!
Weep, for a heart betrays its human trust!
Weep, for a traitor's shame! The Son of Man,
Who, in the days to come, shall haply be
Himself a Father of Men, has turned from truth!
Suddenly CAIN'S face changes as a new thought takes possession of him.
Himself a father—then—
CAIN, transfigured, overwhelmed by his thought, leaps forward and seizes ABEL violently by the arm.
Thou canst not go!
Thou canst not go! Thy soul must see the truth—
Or—

His speech stops suddenly. His eyes stare as tho' confronting a dreadful prospect.
ABEL
Cain!—Release me!

CAIN
Nay, thou canst not go!
This hour is more momentous than I dreamed!
Man, I forgot that not thy paltry fate
Nor mine alone must find decision now!
Man, what of thy children, what of them?
Thou shalt be sire of daughters and strong sons,
Passionate men and women!—Abel! Abel!
Turn to the ways of light lest they shall be
Beggared of all but servitude and shame!

ABEL
Madman! Release me!—Let me pass!

CAIN
Be still,
Coward, be still! The scales of judgment bear
A freight more precious than all thy dreams have guessed!
Fool! dost thou think that were 't thyself alone
Standing in jeopardy, I should not now
Watch thy desertion in a silent scorn,
Choked with the horrour of thy great cowardice?
Yea, and how gladly! were my heart assured,
Losing thee, to forget my love for thee!
Man, how I loved thee!—but no more of this—
Heart breaks, yet life constrains our service still,
And mine is still to say—Thou canst not go!

ABEL
If reason is still existent in thy brain,
Give me the cause of this extremity!

CAIN
The cause is grave beyond thy power of thought
And holds dominion both for thee and me,
Who share the selfsame trust and equally
Safeguard the sacred heritage of life.
We are not merely men but more than men
Since we are pregnant of futurity.
We are not measured by the fretful years
That span our being, since we store the seed
Of myriad generations yet unborn.
We are the start of young humanities!
We are the spring and freshet of mighty streams,
That thro' the reach of the unending years,
As thro' vast fields where darkness wars with dawn,
Shall keep their fruitful and resistless way!
We have within us such an utterance
As once proclaimed shall peal forevermore,
Echoed and multiplied from age to age,
Down thro' the endless labyrinth of time!
We are the scabbard of a sword of flame,
We are the wardens of the House of Life,
We are the guardians of a sacred fire,
We are the gates of Dawn,—the First of Men!
Such is the cause!—for this we shall not yield
The torch of freedom to the winds of fear,
Nor blight the burgeon from the seed of truth
With frost of lies or dust of ignorance!
Nay, we must shield the torch and guard the flower;
We must be perfect in our sacred trust;
We must preserve, in strength and faith and love,
Our whole inheritance that all may share!
Not for the safety of a mean content,
Not in the terrour of a wrathful God,
Shall we renounce the treasure and the task,
Or sell the birthright of the Sons of Man!

ABEL
Thy cause compels not me! I know full well
There shall be shelter upon the breast of God
Thro' all of time, for all the Sons of Men
Who live obedient to His perfect will!

CAIN
There shall be chains for slaves and whips for curs,—
But we!—Are we not men?—express and whole
In all the power and faculty of being?
Are we not deathless souls?

ABEL
Release me!

CAIN
Never!
Never shall I release thee till my hand
Shatters the shuttered windows of thy soul,
And shows thee, tawdry in the great light of truth,
This tinsel majesty, this powerless ghost,
This mouthing masque thy fears have hailed as God!

ABEL
Devil!—Release me!

CAIN
Abel—

ABEL
No, by Heaven,
I will not pander to thy lunacy!

CAIN
Abel, compel me not! I am a man
Driven by desperate emergencies!
Never, I swear, shalt thou betray thy trust!
Nay, thou must here fulfil thy sacred charge,
Shatter thy bondage, cleanse thy soul of lies,
Nor evermore, diseased with cowardice,
Go forth to life!

CAIN is suddenly silent. His eyes are caught by the knife which ABEL had used to sacrifice the lamb and which now lies on the platform where he let it fall. CAIN stares at it in a kind of horrible fascination. ABEL, startled by the sudden break in CAIN'S speech, glances up at his face and then follows his eyes. ABEL sees the knife; he sees CAIN'S expression.

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304

At once his face is transfigured with terrour. Silently and desperately he struggles to escape. CAIN holds him without removing his eyes from the knife.
ABEL
O God, protect me! God,
My God, protect me! O my God!

CAIN
Be still!
He turns to ABEL and cries out in a terrible voice.
Abel!

ABEL
O God!

CAIN
as before
Abel!

ABEL
Merciful God,
As I have served Thee in humility,
Guard and protect me!

CAIN
as before
Abel!
Changing to a tone of desperate entreaty.
Not for thee,
For me 't is fit to make beseeching prayers!
Pity me! Spare me! Man, be true to men!
Spare me this deed!—Spare me!—I cannot choose!

ABEL
Save me, Almighty God! Transcendent God,
Save me, thy servant, Abel!

CAIN
Must it be?
O generations of my seed unborn,
Children of my conception, Sons of Man!
Now for your sakes I tear my heart in twain,
Ravage the confines of my life and hurl
Down from my shattered heavens the light of joy!
Yours is this sacrifice,—for you, for you,
For your salvation, for the Soul of Man!
Abel—I love thee with a perfect love!

ABEL
Devil! Release me!—O my God! My God!

CAIN
So young he is!—So young!—O bleeding heart!
Man can do nothing more for man than this!
He puts forth his hand swiftly and grasps the knife. He shudders.
How can I do this deed?

ABEL
Almighty God,
Thy slave implores thee!—Save me! Save me!
CAIN drives the knife deep into ABEL'S heart.
Cain!

The knife drops from CAIN'S hand. He stares at the body of ABEL. His face is haggard.
CAIN
He is dead!
I have killed the man I loved, my brother, Abel!

Instantly the scene is plunged in total darkness. A tremendous storm rages. Thro' the thunder of the elements is heard the voice of GOD, pealing like a bell.
The voice of GOD
Cain! Cain! Where is Abel thy brother?
Cain! Cain! Where is Abel thy brother?
Cain! Cain! Where is Abel thy brother?

A flash of lightning reveals CAIN still standing on the platform with ABEL'S body in his arms, heedless of the elements.