Innumerable, more endurable,
By the unbounded sympathy of all 160
With all! But He! so wretched in his height,
So restless in his wretchedness, must still
Create, and re-create—perhaps he'll make[1]
One day a Son unto himself—as he
Gave you a father—and if he so doth,
Mark me! that Son will be a sacrifice!
Cain. Thou speak'st to me of things which long have swum
In visions through my thought : I never could
Reconcile what I saw with, what I heard.
My father and my mother talk to me 170
Of serpents, and of fruits and trees: I see
The gates of what they call their Paradise
Guarded by fiery-sworded Cherubim,
Which shut them out—and me: I feel the weight
Of daily toil, and constant thought: I look
Around a world where I seem nothing, with
Thoughts which arise within me, as if they
Could master all things—but I thought alone
This misery was mine. My father is
Tamed down; my mother has forgot the mind 180
Which made her thirst for knowledge at the risk
Of an eternal curse; my brother is
A watching shepherd boy,[2] who offers up
The firstlings of the flock to him who bids
The earth yield nothing to us without sweat;[3]
My sister Zillah sings an earlier hymn
Than the birds' matins; and my Adah—my
Own and belovéd — she, too, understands not
The mind which overwhelms me : never till
- ↑ [Lines 163-166 ("perhaps"..."sacrifice"), which appear in the MS., were omitted from the text in the first and all subsequent editions. In the edition of 1832, etc, (xiv. 27), they are printed as a variant in a footnote. The present text follows the MS.]
- ↑ [According to the Encyclopædia Biblica, the word "Abel" signifies "shepherd" or "herdman." The Massorites give "breath," or "vanity," as an equivalent.]
- ↑
A drudging husbandman who offers up
The first fruits of the earth to him who made
That earth——.—[MS. M. erased.]
