Abel, what have you carved on your altar, in that wild devotion
By which you in vain seek to soften the anger of heaven?
A circle, to show that your God is all near, is filling
The seen and unseen with His incomprehensible presence.
Well, so let it be, then; I'll not contradict the illusion.
One thing appears certain, that we have offended our Maker,
Who visits unjustly on us the mistakes of our parents,
As if we ever reached out our hands for fruit once forbidden.
Shall we never be free from the thorns and the thistles upspringing?
Why do you still try to follow the steps and voice of your Maker?
And why still persist in slaying the white lambs of your meadows?
Take of my beautiful flowers and despise all blood shedding."
"My brother," spoke Abel, "I love the dear innocent flowers.
Are they not all, nearly all that is left us of Eden's fair glory,
All but the singing of birds, the winds and the waters, wild music,
All but the whispers of love and blessings of heart-broken parents;
But you heard, my brother, as well as myself the commandment,
Not to offer to heaven what _we_ choose, but what God declareth
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.
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