Читать книгу Poems of Arthur Hugh Clough - Arthur Hugh Clough - Страница 45

Cain. This is the history then, my father, is it?

This is the perfect whole?

Adam. My son, it is.

And whether a dream, or if it were a dream,

A transcript of an inward spiritual fact

(As you suggest, and I allow, might be),

Not the less true because it was a dream.

I know not—O my Cain, I cannot tell,

But in my soul I think it was a dream,

And but a dream; a thing, whence’er it came,

To be forgotten and considered not.

Cain. Father, you should have told me this before;

It is no use now. Oh God, my brother! oh God!

Adam. For what is life, and what is pain or death?

You have killed Abel: Abel killed the lamb—

An act in him prepense, in you unthought of.

One step you stirred, and lo! you stood entrapped.

Cain. My father, this is true, I know; but yet,

There is some truth beside: I cannot say,

But I have heard within my soul a voice

Asking, ‘Where is thy brother?’ and I said—

That is, the evil heart within me said—

‘Am I my brother’s keeper? go ask him.

Who was it that provoked me? should he rail,

And I not smite? his death be on his head.’

But the voice answered in my soul again,

So that the other ceased and was no more.