Cain And Abel

I.

Cain And Abel

THOU, the young world's first dead, unwept shall be
Through storied time, pure spirit, called to rise
With the first flame of thy first sacrifice—
Thy door of life so forced but set thee free;
All pity be reserved, dark Cain, for thee,
Who from the delvëd earth drew forth a prize,
Then withering in God's unregarding eyes,
Watched the first fruit of lifeless husbandry.

For straight within thy stubborn heart of man
The beast unsacrificed to God, found place,
And brute, unbrotherly instincts overran
Thee wholly, making strange thy human face
Before the angel came to brand, not ban,
But hide thee in a hell of saving grace.

II.

Outcast Cain

NO death by brother's hand to us shows dire
As this thy life, cut off from man and God—
From brother's vengeance and from father's rod—
The cloud about thee closing ever nigher,
No wrath to scourge, no love to re-inspire,
Nought felt but under foot the senseless clod,
Nought hoped but what might spring from out the sod,
Nought seen but smoke of hell's averted fire.

Thus safe in lone invisibility
Thou, wandering o'er the earth from sea to sea,
Must bear the curse of life and blinding hate;
No gush of joy, no cry of mortal pain,
No plaint of love or song of bird, dark Cain,
Makes thy dull harp of life reverberate.

III.

Cain Repentant

BLACK to the heart and calcined to the bone
With love that desolates and fills no sphere,
The barren love that holds the sole self dear,
Which makes the hell wherein it reigns alone;
So wanders Cain till self to self is grown,
A spectre which, in flying, he falls sheer—
Bowed to God's all-consuming breath—a mere
Dumb sacrifice on Abel's altar-stone.

Then lo, the cloud that darkened all his day
And hid the watchful angel of God's love,
The angel's stormy hand has rent away;
Pure light of life beats on him from above,
Cool tears of dawn make soft his hardened clay,
And heal the frienzied heart God's lightnings rove.