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And bid the task-worn memory weave again
The tangled threads, and ravelled skein of thought,
Disjointed fragments of my care-worn life!
The mirror of my soul,-ah! when again
To welcome and reflect calm joy and hope!—
Again subsides, and smooths its turbid swell,
Late surging in the sweep of frenzy's blast,-
And the sad forms of scenes and deeds long past
Blend into spectral shapes and deathlike life,
And pass in silent, stern procession !—

The storm is past ;—but in the pause and hush,
Nor calm nor tranquil joy, nor peace are mine;
My spirit is rebuked!—and like a mist,
Despondency, in grey cold mantle clad,

In phantom form gigantic floats!—

That dream,

That dream, that dreadful dream, the potent spell,
That calls to life the phantoms of the past,-
Makes e'en oblivion memory's register,-

Still swells and vibrates in my throbbing brain!
Again I wildly quaffed the maddening bowl,
Again I staked my all,—again the die

Proved traitor to my hopes ;-and 'twas for her,

Whose love more maddened than the bowl, whose

love,

More dear than all, was treacherous as the die ;Again I saw her with her paramour,

Again I aimed the deadly blow, again

I senseless fell, and knew not whom I struck,
Myself, or her, or him ;-I heard the shriek,
And mingled laugh, and cry of agony:
I felt the whirl of rapid motion,—

And hosts of fiendish shapes, uncertain seen

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"Lead on, my child!" said Cain; "guide me, little child!" And the innocent little child clasped a finger of the hand which had murdered the righteous Abel, and he guided his father. The fir branches drip upon thee, my son." "Yea, pleasantly, father, for I ran fast and eagerly to bring thee the pitcher and the cake, and my body is not yet cool. How happy the squirrels are that feed on these fir-trees! they leap from bough to bough, and the old squirrels play round their young ones in the nest. I clomb a tree yesterday at noon, O my father, that I might play with them, but they leaped away from the branches, even to the slender twigs did they leap, and in a moment I beheld them on another tree. Why, O my father, would they not play with me? I would be good to them as thou art good to me: and I groaned to them even as thou groanest when thou givest me to eat, and when thou coverest me at evening, and as often as I stand at thy knee and thine eyes look at me ?" Then Cain stopped, and stifling his groans, he sank to the earth, and the child Enos stood in the darkness beside him.

And Cain lifted up his voice and cried bitterly, and said, "The Mighty One that persecuteth me is on this side and on that; he pursueth my soul like the wind, like the sand-blast he passeth through me; he is around me even as the air! O that I might be utterly no more! I desire to die—yea, the things that never had life, neither move they upon the earth-behold! they seem precious to mine eyes. O that a man might live without the breath of his nostrils. So I might abide in darkness and blackness, and an empty space! Yea, I would lie

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THE WANDERINGS OF CAIN.

down, I would not rise, neither would I stir my limbs till I became as the rock in the den of the lion, on which the young lion resteth his head whilst he sleepeth. For the torrent that roareth afar off hath a voice; and the clouds in heaven look terribly on me; the Mighty One who is against me speaketh in the wind of the cedar grove; and in silence am I dried up." Then Enos spake to his father, "Arise, my father, arise, we are but a little way from the place where I found the cake and the pitcher."

And Cain said, "How knowest thou ?"

And the child answered, “Behold the bare rocks are a few of thy strides distant from the forest; and while even now thou wert lifting up thy voice, I heard the echo." Then the child took hold of his father as if he would raise him; and Cain being faint and feeble rose slowly on his knees and pressed himself against the trunk of a fir, and stood upright and followed the child.

The path was dark till within three strides' length of its termination, when it turned suddenly; the thick black trees formed a low arch, and the moonlight appeared for a moment like a dazzling portal. Enos ran before, and stood in the open air; and when Cain, his father, emerged from the darkness, the child was affrighted. For the mighty limbs of Cain were wasted as by fire; his hair was as the matted curls on the bison's forehead, and so glared his fierce and sullen eye beneath; and the black abundant locks on either side, a rank and tangled mass, were stained and scorched as though the grasp of a burning iron hand had striven to rend them; and his countenance told in a strange and

terrible language of agonies that had been, and were, and were still to continue to be.

The scene around was desolate; as far as the eye could reach it was desolate: the bare rocks faced each other, and left a long and wide interval of thin white sand. You might wander on, and look round and round, and peep into the crevices of the rocks and discover nothing that acknowledged the influence of the seasons. There was no spring, no summer, no autumn: and the winter's snow, that would have been lovely, fell, not on these hot rocks and scorching sands. Never morning lark had poised himself over this desert; but the huge serpent often hissed there beneath the talons of the vulture, and the vulture screamed, his wings imprisoned within the coils of the serpent. The pointed and shattered summits of the ridges of the rocks made a rude mimicry of human concerns, and seemed to prophesy mutely of things that then were not; steeples, and battlements, and ships with naked masts. As far from the wood as a boy might swing a pebble of the brook, there was one rock by itself at a small distance from the main ridge. It had been precipitated there perhaps by the groan which the Earth uttered when our first father fell. Before you approached, it appeared to lie flat on the ground, but its base slanted from its point, and between its point and the sands a tall man might stand upright. It was here that Enos had found the pitcher and cake, and to this place he led his father. But ere they. had reached the rock they beheld a human Shape; his back was towards them, and they were advancing unperceived, when they heard him smite his breast, and cry aloud, "Woe is me! woe is me! I

328 THE WANDERINGS OF CAIN.

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feet of him that was like Abel disturbed not the sands. He greatly outran Cain, and turning short, he wheeled round, and came again to the rock where they had been sitting, and where Enos still stood; and the child caught hold of his garment as he passed by, and he fell upon the ground. And Cain stopped, and beholding him not, said, "He has passed into the dark woods," and he walked slowly back to the rocks; and when he reached it the child told him that he had caught hold of his garment as he passed by, and that the man had fallen upon the ground: and Cain once more sate beside him, and said, "Abel, my brother, I would lament for thee, but that the spirit within me is withered, and burnt up with extreme agony. Now, I pray thee, by thy flocks and by thy pastures, and by the quiet rivers which thou lovedst, that thou tell me all that thou knowest. Who is the God of the dead? where doth he make his dwelling? what sacrifices are acceptable unto him? for I have offered, but have not been received; I have prayed; and have not been heard; and how can I be afflicted more than I already am?" The Shape arose and answered, "O that thou had hadst pity on me as I will have pity on thee. Follow me, Son of Adam! and bring thy child with thee!"

And they three passed over the white sands between the rocks, silent as the shadows.

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