Lucifer's Poem: Breaking The Laws Of Heaven

“Laws alone cannot secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be a spirit of tolerance in the entire population.” a saying taken from the brilliant Albert Einstein means that laws are here to protect us yet, they are always broken and those who break those laws will then suffer. This quote refers to Lucifer rebelling against heaven and being consigned to hell or the “dark dominion”(2). The meaning of this poem is that Lucifer has broken the laws of heaven by rebelling and is therefore suffering for it, there is no way out of his hell no matter how hard he tries to re-enter heaven.You break the law and you suffer the consequences, while it’s well known that Lucifer has rebelled against

This leaves the reader a bit confused, but still makes one think Lucifer is the enemy. It may seem as if Lucifer has risen to Earth, but as the reading continues we can see he is above Earth or above the “rolling ball”(3). Even though the poem refers to earth as a “rolling ball”(3) God pictured it as a plane, with Heaven on a higher plane and Hell on a lower plane, not a sphere. As Lucifer is in the stars above earth he is looking down “in cloud part screened,” (3) and observing the sinners. He is observing the sinners from line four “Where sinners hugged their specter of repose”. The sinners are referring to the people on earth and according to the bible Adam sinned, therefore all of his sons and daughters are sinners as well. He may be able to relate to these “sinners”. This also shows he is vying for his acceptance back into heaven, and while that doesn’t really work he then sets his mind of the people who will become apart of his hell. It’s apparent how cocky he is as he is tracing over the people who are entering his “dark” realm. Lucifer then continues to fly over the Earth and over the “… huge bulk o’er Afric’s sands…”(7). Here he is describing the sands of Africa, possibly the Sahara desert which is endless amounts of sand. This stanza could feel like Hell to anyone if one was stuck in the middle of it, but it could have felt like home

These laws are supposed to be there to ‘protect’ us and we are forced to accept this. We can either accept or reject this either as an individual or as part of a mass. However with rejection comes consequence as we saw in this poem. This theme could also be nature vs. nurture. Meaning society is given set laws, wether or not you choose to believe or follow them is how you see society. In this poem it shows us that Lucifer rebelled against Heaven, most likely because he did not believe in the laws of heaven and because of that was kicked out. There is always a consequence for your