Collected Plays

The Birth of Sin

A Drama

The revised form of THE BIRTH OF SIN appears in Volume V - COLLECTED POEMS

Persons of Drama

LUCIFER - the Angel of Power.

SIRIOTH - the Angel of Love.

GABRIEL - the Angel of Obedience.

MICHAEL - the Angel of War.

RAPHAEL - the Angel of Sweetness.

THE ELOHIM.

BELIAL - the Angel of Reason.

BAAL - the Angel of Worldly Wisdom.

MOLOCH - the Angel of Wrath.

SUN.

ASHTORATH - the Angel of Beauty.

MEROTH - the Angel of Youth.

Page 901

Prologue

Act One

LUCIFER
Master of light and glory, lift thy rays
Over the troubled flood; lift up thy rays.
Obey me.

THE SUN
Lucifer! who gaveth thee power
Over the gods that rule the ancient world?
Or why should I obey thee? Art thou God?
Hast thou dethroned the Omnipotent from Heaven
And cast Him down into the nether glooms,
Revolting? Gave He then His supreme command?
Speak as a servant then and minister
Not with the accent that controls the stars.

LUCIFER
Who then compelled thee from thy bright repose,
Or wherefore hast thou come?

THE SUN
By Him compelled
Before whose mandate tremble all the Gods.

LUCIFER
By His or mine. That I will see. Rise, Sun,
And from thy luminous majestic orb
Cast out into the azure hold of Space
Creative Energy and Pregnant Fire
Whirling around thee, while the years endure.

THE SUN
Lucifer, Son of Morning, first in Heaven,

Page 903

What madness seizes thee? What awful force
Darkly magnificent, brilliantly ominous
Looks out from eyes that own no more the calm?

LUCIFER
Obey!

THE SUN
I cannot choose. Power leaps from thee
Upon me. I am seized with fiery pangs.
Spare me, thou dreadful Angel. I obey.

Exit.

LUCIFER
Power to make and unmake the world!
Power grows in me. I am omnipotent.
Children of immortality whose ranks
And brilliant armies people the infinite,
Creatures of wonder, creatures of desire¹,
O suns that wheel in everlasting fire,
O stars that sow the ethereal spaces thick,
O worlds of various life! I am your king.
This I have learnt that God and I are one.
If one, then equal! Rightly too I deemed
That God develops, God increases. I,
Younger than He am greater than the Power
From which I sprang; the new excels the old.

BELIAL
What dost thou, Lucifer, Angel of God?
The infinite spaces murmur like a sea,
The ethereal realms are rocked as with a wind,
All Nature stands amazed. Whence this revolt?
Who gave thee force to overturn the world?

LUCIFER
Watch, Belial, watch with me. A crisis comes

Page 904

In the infinite, mobile and progressive world.
For God shall cease and Lucifer be God.

BELIAL
Thou speakest a thing that madness only speaks.
If God be God, how can He change or cease?

LUCIFER
Watch, Belial! I will prove to thee the truth,
Thou reasonable Angel.

Page 905