The Master said,
“I will not hear thee talk thereof; my heart
Is sick for all this wicked world.  Fair wife,
I am right weary.  Call thy slaves to thee,
And bid that they prepare the sleeping place. 
O would that I might rest!  I fain would rest,
And, no more wandering, tell a thankless world
My never-heeded tale!”
With that she called. 
The moon was up, and some few stars were out,
While heavy at the heart he walked abroad
To meditate before his sleep.  And yet
Niloiya pondered, “Shall my master go? 
And will my master go?  What ’vaileth it,
That he doth spend himself, over the waste
A wandering, till he reach outlandish folk,
That mock his warning?  O, what ’vaileth it,
That he doth lavish wealth to build yon ark,
Whereat the daughters, when they eat with me,
Laugh?  O my heart!  I would the Voice were stilled. 
Is not he happy?  Who, of all the earth,
Obeyed like to me?  Have not I learned
From his dear mouth to utter seemly words,
And lay the powers my mother gave me by? 
Have I made offerings to the dragon?  Nay,
And I am faithful, when he leaveth me
Lonely betwixt the peaked mountain tops
In this long valley, where no stranger foot
Can come without my will.  He shall not go. 
Not yet, not yet!  But three days—­only three—­
Beside me, and a muttering on the third,
‘I have heard the Voice again.’  Be dull, O dull,
Mind and remembrance!  Mother, ye did ill;
’T is hard unlawful knowledge not to use. 
Why, O dark mother! opened ye the way?”
Yet when he entered, and did lay aside
His costly robe of sacrifice, the robe
Wherein he had been offering, ere the sun
Went down; forgetful of her mother’s craft,
She lovely and submiss did mourn to him: 
“Thou wilt not go,—­I pray thee, do not go,
Till thou hast seen thy children.”  And he said,
“I will not.  I have cried, and have prevailed: 
To-morrow it is given me by the Voice
Upon a four days’ journey to proceed,
And follow down the river, till its waves
Are swallowed in the sand, where no flesh dwells.

“‘There,’ quoth the Unrevealed, ’we shall meet,
And I will counsel thee; and thou shalt turn
And rest thee with the mother, and with them
She bare.’  Now, therefore, when the morn appears,
Thou fairest among women, call thy slaves,
And bid them yoke the steers, and spread thy car
With robes, the choicest work of cunning hands;
Array thee in thy rich apparel, deck
Thy locks with gold; and while the hollow vale
I thread beside yon river, go thou forth
Atween the mountains to my father’s house,
And let thy slaves make all obeisance due,
And take and lay an offering at his feet. 
Then light, and cry to him, ’Great king, the son
Of old Methuselah, thy son hath sent
To fetch the growing maids, his children, home.’”