Fair Italy,

Even in thy desert, what is like to thee?

Thy very weeds are beautiful, thy waste

More rich than other climes fertility." - Childe Harold, Canto IV, stanza xxvi, p. 66.

A loathsome, and yet all invincible
Instinct of life, which I abhor, as I
Despise myself, yet cannot overcome

And so I live. Would I had never lived!

Lucifer.

Thou livest, and must live for ever: think not The earth, which is thine outward cov'ring, is it will cease, and thou wilt be

Existence

Cain.

How should I be so? Look on me!

Lucifer.

Poor clay!

And thou pretendest to be wretched! Thou!

Cain.

I am :- and thou, with all thy might, what art thou?

Lucifer.

One who aspired to be what made thee, and
Would not have made thee what thou art.

Cain.

Thou look'st almost a god; and—

Ah!

Lucifer.

I am none:

And having fail'd to be one, would be nought
Save what I am. He conquer'd; let him reign!

Who?

Cain.

Lucifer.

Thy sire's Maker and the earth's.

Cain.

And heaven's,

And all that in them is. So I have heard
His seraphs sing; and so my father saith.

Souls who dare look the Omnipotent tyrant in
His everlasting face, and tell him that

His evil is not good! If he has made,

As he saith - which I know not, nor believe

But, if he made us

We are immortal!

he cannot unmake:

nay, he'd have us so,

That he may torture: let him! He is great — But, in his greatness, is no happier than

We in our conflict! Goodness would not make Evil; and what else hath he made? But let him

Sit on his vast and solitary throne,

Creating worlds, to make eternity

Less burthensome to his immense existence

And unparticipated solitude;

Let him crowd orb on orb: he is alone

Indefinite, indissoluble tyrant;

Could he but crush himself, 't were the best boon

He ever granted: but let him reign on,

And multiply himself in misery!

Spirits and men, at least we sympathise