In Paradise. In the centre the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Eternal Life. ADAM and EVE enter. Animals of various kinds surround them in calm trust and without fear. Through the open door of heaven shines the glory, and the soft music of angelic choirs is heard. Sunshine.

EVE
Ah life, ah life, how sweet, how beautiful.

ADAM
And to be lord and master over all!

EVE
To feel that we are cared for, and that God
Only our simple thanks would have us give
For all the blessings He hath given us.

ADAM
Thy nature is to lean on others, Eve.
But I grow thirsty: see how temptingly
This fruit hangs from the bough.

EVE
      I’ll pluck for thee.

THE VOICE OF THE LORD
Stay, Adam, stay! The whole world gave
I thee, But touch not these two trees, touch not, touch not!
Another spirit guards their tempting fruit,
And he who eats thereof shall die the death.
There, on the vine, the purple clusters hang,
And yonder, cooling shade may yield thee rest
Where the noon glows in burning radiance.

ADAM
A strange command, but yet a solemn one.

EVE
Why is it that these two trees fairer are
Than others? Why are they forbidden us?

ADAM
The sky, why is it blue? Why green the grove?
It is enough they are so. Let us bow
To the command. Come, follow after me.
They rest in an arbour.

EVE
Lean on my breast, and let me cool thy brow.
A great gust of wind. LUCIFER appears amidst the leaves.

ADAM
Hark, Eve! What is that sound? I never heard
Its like. As though some strange and evil force
Had broken forth on us.

EVE
      I am afraid.
The music of the Heaven, too, has ceased.

ADAM
It seems I hear it in thy bosom yet.

EVE
If there above the light is veiled with cloud,
I find it, Adam, in thine eyes below;
And where else should I find it save in thee,
Since thy fierce longing called me into life,
As when the lordly sun, proud in his strength,
Lest in the universe he stand alone,
Paints his own likeness on the water’s breast,
And dallies with it, overjoyed to think
He has a comrade, and forgets it is
Nought but a pale reflection of his fire,
That would with his own glory pass away.

ADAM
Speak not in this wise: make me not ashamed.
What is the voice, if none can understand?
What is the light, if it illumine not?
What should I be, if I found not in thee,
As finds a voice its echo, or the light
The bloom it nurtures, myself fairer grown.
In thee in whom my own self I may love?

LUCIFER
Why do I hearken to this tender play?
I will not look, for else such shame it were
That cold and calculating intellect
Should gaze with envy on their childish hearts.
A bird begins to sing on a bough near-by.

EVE
Hark, Adam! Tell me, dost thou understand
This little merry love song trilling forth?

ADAM
I listened to the babbling of the stream,
And as I think it sang the same sweet song.

EVE
What strange and wondrous harmony is this,
A single meaning in a thousand tongues.

LUCIFER
Why do I thus delay? On, straightway to the task.
I swore destruction and I must destroy.
And yet now do I stand, and hesitate:
Knowledge, ambition: Weapons that beguile:
Yet fight I not anew with them, in vain
Against that strength which guards them, that which keeps
Their souls from languor, faintness and despair,
Raising the fallen once again - the heart?
But why this brooding - who dares, gains the fight.
A new blast of wind. LUCIFER appears before the terrified pair. The glory is veiled. LUCIFER laughs.
Why are ye so afraid?
EVE starts to flee.
to EVE
      Stay, beautiful!
Let mine eyes look upon thy loveliness.
EVE stays and slowly gathers courage.
aside
The pattern of this excellence shall be
A million times renewed.
aloud
      Dost thou fear me,
Adam?

ADAM
      I fear thee, miserable one!

LUCIFER
aside
A worthy ancestor of the proud race
Of men.
aloud
      Hail, brother spirit!

ADAM
      Who art thou?
Dost thou come from beneath or from above?

LUCIFER
As thou wilt have it. ’Tis the same to us.

ADAM
I knew not there were others of our kind.

LUCIFER
Ah! There are many things thou knowest not,
And thou shalt not know. Hath the Ancient then,
Created thee from dust for thee to share
The vast and mighty universe with him?
Thou praisest him and he maintaineth thee,
Telleth thee what to take and what to shun,
And guardeth thee as he would guard a sheep.
Thou has no need of thought or Consciousness.

ADAM
Of Consciousness? Am I not conscious then?
Do I not feel the blessed light of day,
And the delight of knowing that I live,
And all the boundless favour of my God,
Who of this earth hath made me overlord?

LUCIFER
So might this little maggot also feel
That eats the fruit before thou taste thereof;
So might the eagle swooping on his prey.
What renders thee more noble then than these?
A little spark, a light that dawns in you,
The stir of an immeasurable force,
Like to the single wavelets of a brook
That glitter for a second, and fall back
Into the grey depth of their common bed.
Yea, there may well be, one thing, Consciousness,
Yet stiff and numb in thy unwitting heart,
Maturity would give, thee, trust to stand
In thine own strength, to choose betwixt the Good
And Evil, that thou should’st command thy fate,
And free thee from the care of Providence.
Yet, peradventure, it were best for thee
In the warm shelter of thy little world
To increase, like the worm, and live thy life
Unknowingly, until thy days shall end.
Contentment in our trust doth bring great ease:
Noble, but hard it is, to stand alone.

ADAM
Thou speakest great things, and my head grows faint.

EVE
I listen to thy words with eagerness.
Thou tellest of things new and beautiful.

LUCIFER
Yet knowledge only were not strong enough,
And for the mind, its great works to achieve,
Knowledge must join with immortality.
What can he do who lives but for a day?
Knowledge and life lie in these two trees hid.
And he who formed them has forbidden them.
Of this, if thou taste, thou shalt know, as God;
Of that, if thou taste, thou shalt e’er be young.

EVE
How harsh is our Creator, and how stern.

ADAM
But if thou dost deceive us?
The glory shines faintly.

THE HEAVENLY CHOIR
      Woe to thee,
Woe to thee, World, Age Old Denial tempst!

THE VOICE OF THE LORD
Oh man beware!

ADAM
What is that voice again?

LUCIFER
The wind that shakes the branches.
      Sun, wind and rain
      Help not in vain
      Man’s race to gain.
A blast of wind; the glory is veiled.
Mine are these two trees, mine!

ADAM
      Who art thou then?
Since thou art like to us to look upon.

LUCIFER
See how the eagle soars amid the clouds,
Look on the mole that blindly turns the soil,
Each has its own horizon, and the land
Of spirits lies far, beyond thy sight.
Man is the noblest thing to thee, a man.
So to a dog the highest is a dog.
And he would honour thee if he should greet
Thee comrade-wise. But as thou lookest down
Upon a dog, and higher far than he,
Standest above him, like his destiny,
And dealest him a blessing or a curse,
As if a god, so, on the race of man
Look down the proud and mighty spirit host.

ADAM
And art thou of that host a member then?

LUCIFER
Yea, mightiest among that mighty throng,
I stood in Heaven beside the throne of God
And in His glory once I held my part.

ADAM
Why did’st thou not remain in Heaven’s light,
Why hast thou come down to our realm of earth?

LUCIFER
It wearied me to take the second place,
To live a life unchanged, monotonous,
To hearken to the childish minstrelsy
Of angel choirs that praise unceasingly
And nothing hold as bad. Conflict, discord,
These would I have, that new force bring to birth,
New worlds create, where in itself the soul
Can great be, where the bold may join with me.

ADAM
If we should choose the course God hath not set
He hath declared that he would punish us.

EVE
Why should he punish? For if he hath fixed
The way that he would have us follow, so
He hath ordained it, that no sinful lure
Should draw us otherwhere; why hath he set
The path athwart a giddy yawning gulf
To doom us to destruction? If, likewise,
Sin hath a place in the eternal plan,
As storm amid the days of sunlit warmth,
Who would the angry storm more guilty deem
Than the life-giving brightness of the sun?

LUCIFER
Lo, now appears the first philosopher.
Fair sister, many shall succeed to thee
And argue in a million ways anew,
And many shall go mad with reasoning
And many shall turn back afraid; not one
Shall reach their haven. Let us leave aside
This speculation. For to everything
So many facets are there, that should we
Strive to find out the nature of this all
We should know less than when we first began
And never seize the hour to act and dare,
For speculation stifles bold resolve.

EVE
Then will I pluck a fruit from this fair tree.

ADAM
God’s curse lies on it.
LUCIFER laughs.
      Yet reach forth thine hand.
Come on us what may come. Let us be wise
And know all things, as God.
First EVE and then ADAM taste of the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.

EVE
      But let us too
Be ever young.

LUCIFER
      Haste, hither, hither come.
This is the tree of immortality.
But hasten!
He leads them to the second tree. A CHERUB with a flaming sword stands in their way.

THE CHERUB
      Hence, hence sinners, hence, away!

THE VOICE OF THE LORD
Adam, Adam, thou hast forsaken me.
And I leave thee; see what thou dost alone.

EVE
We perish.

LUCIFER
      Ye despair?

ADAM
      Believe it not.
’Tis but the shudder of awakening. Hence,
Hence, Eve, no matter whither, let us go.
This place is alien and desolate.

THE CHOIR OF ANGELS
Ah, weep ye, angels, joy is fled, and mirth.
Falsehood prevails, and hath destroyed the earth.