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!
Lucifer (after a pause). Dost thou remember, Adam, when the curse
Took us in Eden? On a mountain-peak
Half-sheathed in primal woods and glittering
In spasms of awful sunshine at that hour,
A lion couched, part raised upon his paws,
With his calm massive face turned full on thine,
And his mane listening. When the ended curse
Left silence in the world, right suddenly
He sprang up rampant and stood straight and stiff,
As if the new reality of death
Were dashed against his eyes, and roared so fierce,
(Such thick carnivorous passion in his throat
Tearing a passage through the wrath and fear)
And roared so wild, and smote from all the hills
Such fast keen echoes crumbling down the vales
Precipitately,—that the forest beasts,
One after one, did mutter a response
Of savage and of sorrowful complaint
Which trailed along the gorges. Then, at once,
He fell back, and rolled crashing from the height
Into the dusk of pines.