I have a clinging curse, they call my brother:
I have a heavy pain, they call my brother:
I have a desolation in my heart,
They call my brother! And my soul is sad.

Eblis. Thy brother's highly favour'd, lov'd, and
prais'd:

The heavens smile on him, and dull things of earth
Rejoice to be the servants of his will.
The vapour of his spiced sacrifice
Made yesterday upon the skyey hills,
Took wings for the eternal land above,
While thine was beaten back into thy face,
And dash'd upon the dust, and made as naught:
And yet his offering had Murder in't,
And innocent blood of meek and trusting lambs
Accuse him to the vast, eternal sky.

Kabeel. Thou speakest duskily. What thing is this
Which thou call'st murder? for I know it not.

Eblis. Thou wilt soon know it, more than words can tell:
Thy hand is heavy with a weight of doom.
—Kabeel, bethink thee of thy many wrongs.
Thy father and thy mother turn from thee:
She whom thou lovest, and would'st call thy wife,
Swoons when she hears thy step.

Kabeel. No more! no more!
There is a dark tide rising in my brain,
And I am borne upon it. The glad heavens
Are gone—the sweet earth vanish'd; and I stand
Within a vast and melancholy blank,
Listening to thy far-sounding words, which burst
Upward, like bubbles from the deep black wells.

Eblis. Thou wouldst be happier if thou hadst no
brother.

Kabeel. What is it that thus shakes the darkness
round
As with a hand? What groping thing is this?

Eblis. There is a god called Death, whom thou
know'st not;
Yet is he ever hovering in thy flesh,
And in all flesh; and whosoe'er he takes
Within his stiff embrace, turns faint and pale,
And lies him down upon his mother earth,
Kissing with dreary lips the foot-spurn' d dust,
And never speaketh more to friend or foe,
Nor eats, nor drinks, nor moveth any limb,
No, though you taunt him loudly in the ear:
And so he fades away into a thing
That his own kindred hide in very shame,
And the earth takes him back unto herself.
Thus will it be, though it hath not been yet,
With all thy father's race.

Kabeel. What prayers, what vows!
What devilish sacrifices, what loud cries,
What raging dances, what fierce ecstacy,
What gashings of the limbs, what sumptuous pain,
Will draw this god, like lightning, from his heaven,
To do my bidding?

Eblis. He needs none of these;
Thou hold'st him in thy hand—this unknown god—
With many a harmless seeming thing, wherein
He lurks, like fire within the cold flint-stone.
Look forth! What seest thou? Look!

Kabeel. The darkness stirs;
And in one spot, flush'd with white, tremulous beams,
Like night before the morning, languishes!
And now, within a broad and luminous space,
I see my brother sleeping in the shade
Of mingling palm-trees. Very still he lies:
Idly his huge arm drops along his side;
His strengthful fingers feebly clutch the grass;
His open mouth is speechless; and the soul
That look'd out of his eager eyes has fled.
Is this the god thou speak'st of? Is this Death?

Eblis. Death comes upon the tempest of his might!
The upper air is ruffled with his step!
What see'st thou now?

Kabeel. I see the darkness yearn
From side to side, and strangely palpitate:
And now it gathers form, and glares aloft,
A living blackness! Now—oh, horrible!—
It is myself I look upon, with eyes
That peer into their own tremendous depths,
And startle at themselves!—Light, light! oh, light!
Ye winged ministers of the One Supreme!
I am alone in darkness; and my heart
Is traitor to itself, and mocks at me!—
Alas! they hear me not—they know me not!
My thought stands full between me and the heavens;
The shadow of my soul is on all things!

Eblis. The great god Death comes nearer—nearer
still!
Look up, and give him welcome!

Kabeel. Now, strange shape,
Thou holdest in thy hand a jagged stone,
And smil'st on it! And now, with upward whirl
Of that avenging arm—Ha, ha! the bolt
Has fallen, and my heart cries out! My breath
Seems snatch'd from me! My ears are loud with
noise!
My sight dazzles! Bear me up! The rooted earth
Rolls hither and thither, and I faint—I sink!
There is a crimson something in my eyes,
Which dances like the motes before the sun!
I have a sense of a distorted face,
And of a silence that shall live for age,
And of a satisfaction and deep ease
To the very bones, like that which comes to us
At quenching of a great and tyrannous thirst!
I could even weep; but not for grief—not grief!

Eblis. The mighty Death shall set his seal on the
world!
Rejoice, Kabeel! The great god Death shall come!

[He vanishes like a slow cloud. KABEEL, who has
fallen to the earth, starts up with a great cry.
A red sunset is looking through the trees.

Kabeel. Spread yourselves out, ye hills! Leap up,
ye heavens!
Sink, thou firm earth, below me! for my joy
Cannot contain itself within your bounds!
My heart is giant-like, and knocks against
The framework of the world! Arise, thou dust,
And triumph over that which treads on thee!
Shout to the scornful and down-looking stars,
Ye stones, and ye contemned, lowly things!
I will avenge the wrongs of such as ye.
Nature, to discord and confusion haste!
Roar to the many-faced and threatful sea,
Ye cloud-compelling and great-voiced winds!
Answer, ye billows, from the vast abyss
In thunderous laughter!—I will do this deed.

[Observes the sunset.

Thou fierce, red sunset, staining all the west,
And splashing the tree-tops with wicked light!
Thou shalt to me be as an influence,
Only I will surpass thee. I will fling
A light far down the weltering stream of years,
Crimson as thine, but not so briefly gone,
Which men shall quake to see. I will glare out
From the recesses of the cavernous Past,
A bloody star, more dreadful than those glooms
By night beneath the iron cedar woods
When the moon drops below the hills, and all