Cain at Euphrates, Op. 34

"It is I! Cain, the riddle-breaker,
The truthful idealist, the wave-waker,
The dreamer of dreams,
The schemer of schemes,
The Hero, who from the well of treasons,
Has drained the dregs of reasons;
I've tasted it all,
Done it all;
Drank it all!"

So issues Cain from the banks of Euphrates,
Where with fear and terror driven he falls,
Thinking that above the star-lit caverns and halls,
Stand still with vigilant ear,
Swaying closer for his boasts to hear,
And as he more leans to the river's brink,
He more dreams, laughing at his magnificient lies,
While his hands shatter the surface before his eyes,
And his lips embrace the rippling waves.
For tendays since that fateful turn,
The mark of slayer has in him burnt,
The blood that flowed in him has yet to stop;
In his mind the blade makes a screeching float,
And with pleasant ambient evokes his laughter,
Emerging from his thoughts of jubilant slaughter;
Till, early today he sees the river, where fearlessly,
The stains of blood he finally washes away,
And in idle fantasies he now spends his day;
Marvelling where the water reflects his face,
Onto which now is etched a handsome mark.

This here then, the kingdom of sinners,
Where both deliberate and foolishly branded will
Wander, and their own mark on the domains instill,
And build a prouder nation, which with diamond towers,
Will reach the realms of heaven in their cloudy bowers.
The river that fleetly flows here we'll redirect,
Its course through arid lands with manlier hand,
Will carve through rock and desert my joyful band,
And make irrigation over mead, farm over pasture,
Civilization over ruin, and ruin onto pastoral,
Make dreams come visions, and visions onto true,
So that blissful gardens will be anew,
And that blood that flowed ever will taste like wine,
And the blood flows from a knife, and the knife is mine.
So indolently dreams Cain, and his feats of tommorrow,
Like from his present they borrow,
As soon like a wild beast or a predator of dark,
He'll pounce on every pheasant or squalid lark.

The fate of villain is no lonely one,
As more villains than heroes here below the sun,
And neither will I be without a pair,
For ever the feminine form has sought for,
The villain and the knave, these they do adore;
And my queen shall be the fairest of all,
My Helen's beauty shall eclipse the stars,
And gather my corps from near and afar.
So issues Cain, from his golden throne lying,
From his kraks and citadels in Babylon's hills,
From his dark and towering satanic mills;
And in his mind the paladins of old are his,
Their hearts of gold are his hearts of cold;
The legions under his command untold,
His courts are filled with sagacious pedigree,
Philosophers crowd his door, the love of a woman,
Is his to ask for, his harem a mountain does span.
Yet not all can be, not all dreams be real,
His magnificient court is filled with rot,
The only philosophers those that here are not.