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SELECTIONS FROM BLAKE'S WRITINGS.
Eve.—Is this the promise of Jehovah? Oh it is all a vain delusion,
This Death and this Life and this Jehovah.
Jehovah.—Woman, lift thine eyes.
(A Voice is heard coming on.)
Voice.—O Earth, cover not thou my blood!
(Enter the Ghost of Abel.)
Eve.—Thou visionary Phantasm, thou art not the real Abel.
Abel.—Among the Elohim a Human Victim I wander. I am their House,
Prince of the Air, and our dimensions compass Zenith and Nadir.
Vain is thy Covenant, O Jehovah: I am the Accuser and Avenger
Of Blood; O Earth, cover not thou the blood of Abel.
Jehovah.—What vengeance dost thou require?
Abel.—Life for Life! Life for Life!
Jehovah.—He who shall take Cain's life must also die, O Abel;
And who is he? Adam, wilt thou, or Eve, thou, do this?
Adam.—It is all a vain delusion of the all-creative Imagination.
Eve, come away, and let us not believe these vain delusions.
Abel is dead, and Cain slew him; We shall also die a death,
And then—what then? be as poor Abel, a Thought; or as
This? Oh what shall I call thee. Form Divine, Father of Mercies,
That appearest to my Spiritual Vision? Eve, seest thou also?
Eve.—I see him plainly with my mind's eye: I see also Abel living!
Tho' terribly afflicted, as we also are: yet Jehovah sees him
