“O, as for him,
It was for this that he full oft would stop,
And, lost in thought, stand and revolve that deed,
Sad muttering, Woman! we reproach thee not;
Though thou didst eat mine immortality;
Earth, be not sorry; I was free to choose. 
Wonder not, therefore, if he walked forlorn. 
Was not the helpmeet given to raise him up
From his contentment with the lower things? 
Was she not somewhat that he could not rule
Beyond the action, that he could not have
By the mere holding, and that still aspired
And drew him after her?  So, when deceived
She fell by great desire to rise, he fell
By loss of upward drawing, when she took
An evil tongue to be her counsellor: 
’Death is not as the death of lower things,
Rather a glorious change, begrudged of Heaven,
A change to being as gods,’—­he from her hand,
Upon reflection, took of death that hour,
And ate it (not the death that she had dared);
He ate it knowing.  Then divisions came. 
She, like a spirit strayed who lost the way,
Too venturesome, among the farther stars,
And hardly cares, because it hardly hopes
To find the path to heaven; in bitter wise
Did bear to him degenerate seed, and he,
Once having felt her upward drawing, longed,
And yet aspired, and yearned to be restored,
Albeit she drew no more.”

“Sir, ye speak well,”
Niloiya saith, “but yet the mother sits
Higher than Adam.  He did understand
Discourse of birds and all four-footed things,
But she had knowledge of the many tribes
Of angels and their tongues; their playful ways
And greetings when they met.  Was she not wise? 
They say she knew much that she never told,
And had a voice that called to her as thou.”

“Nay,” quoth the Master-shipwright, “who am I
That I should answer?  As for me, poor man,
Here is my trouble:  ‘if there be a Voice,’
At first I cried, ’let me behold the mouth
That uttereth it,’ Thereon it held its peace. 
But afterward, I, journeying up the hills,
Did hear it hollower than an echo fallen
Across some clear abyss; and I did stop,
And ask of all my company, ’What cheer? 
If there be spirits abroad that call to us,
Sirs, hold your peace and hear,’ So they gave heed,
And one man said, ’It is the small ground-doves
That peck upon the stony hillocks’:  one,
’It is the mammoth in yon cedar swamp
That cheweth in his dream’:  and one, ’My lord,
It is the ghost of him that yesternight
We slew, because he grudged to yield his wife
To thy great father, when he peaceably
Did send to take her,’ Then I answered, ‘Pass,’
And they went on; and I did lay mine ear
Close to the earth; but there came up therefrom
No sound, nor any speech; I waited long. 
And in the saying, ’I will mount my beast
And on,’ I was as one that in a trance
Beholdeth what is coming, and I saw
Great waters and a ship; and somewhat spake,
’Lo, this shall be; let him that heareth it,
And seeth it, go forth to warn his kind,
For I will drown the world,’”