Will shadow our Faith and sweet Hope in the promised atonement;
And that terrible sin, those spots in our souls, my dear brother,
Can never be cleansed by the lives of the beautiful flowers,
Only by His, shadowed forth in the death of an innocent victim."

Then angrily answered Cain back to his young brother's pleading,
"Abel, I have no patience with such mock humiliations,
I have no need of a Saviour, I have no need of blood-shedding
To wash out the stain of my own or my father's transgression.
I for myself can make perfect and full restitution;
Look at the smoke of your altar curling upward so clearly,
Making white cloudlets on high in the blue of the firmament,
While mine sweeps the ground that is cursed like the trail of the serpent:
Why comes down the Maker of this blighted universe, asking
Why art thou wroth, and why is thy countenance fallen?"

Stand I not here in the image of God, who created us?
Have I not courage, and freedom, and strength above my inferiors?
Did not our father give name to beast, bird, insect and reptile?
Shall his children crouch down and kneel like the creature that crawleth?
I will not obey this commandment, but I'll wreath up my altar
With offerings of earth, with gold of the orange, and red of the roses,
I'll not stain my hands with the blood of an innocent creature."
So Cain turned away from his wondering brother; perhaps then little
dreaming
That on the next morrow he would become earth's first murderer;
And, scorning the death of a lamb, take the life of a brother.