And as he went, he thought: 
                            [They do not well
Who, walking up a trodden path, all smooth
With footsteps of their fellows, and made straight
From town to town, will scorn at them that worm
Under the covert of God’s eldest trees
(Such as He planted with His hand, and fed
With dew before rain fell, till they stood close
And awful; drank the light up as it dropt,
And kept the dusk of ages at their roots);
They do not well who mock at such, and cry,
“We peaceably, without or fault or fear,
Proceed, and miss not of our end; but these
Are slow and fearful:  with uncertain pace,
And ever reasoning of the way, they oft,
After all reasoning, choose the worser course,
And plunged in swamp, or in the matted growth
Nigh smothered struggle, all to reach a goal
Not worth their pains.”  Nor do they well whose work
Is still to feed and shelter them and theirs,
Get gain, and gathered store it, to think scorn
Of those who work for a world (no wages paid
By a Master hid in light), and sent alone
To face a laughing multitude, whose eyes
Are full of damaging pity, that forbears
To tell the harmless laborer, “Thou art mad.”]

And as he went, he thought:  “They counsel me,
Ay, with a kind of reason in their talk,
’Consider; call thy soberer thought to aid;
Why to but one man should a message come? 
And why, if but to one, to thee?  Art thou
Above us, greater, wiser?  Had He sent,
He had willed that we should heed.  Then since He knoweth
That such as thou, a wise man cannot heed,
He did not send.’  My answer, ’Great and wise,
If He had sent with thunder, and a voice
Leaping from heaven, ye must have heard; but so
Ye had been robbed of choice, and, like the beasts,
Yoked to obedience.  God makes no men slaves,’
They tell me, ’God is great above thy thought: 
He meddles not:  and this small world is ours,
These many hundred years we govern it;
Old Adam, after Eden, saw Him not.’ 
Then I, ’It may be He is gone to knead
More clay.  But look, my masters; one of you
Going to warfare, layeth up his gown,
His sickle, or his gold, and thinks no more
Upon it, till young trees have waxen great;
At last, when he returneth, he will seek
His own.  And God, shall He not do the like? 
And having set new worlds a-rolling, come
And say, “I will betake Me to the earth
That I did make”:  and having found it vile,
Be sorry.  Why should man be free, you wise,
And not the Master?’ Then they answer, ’Fool! 
A man shall cast a stone into the air
For pastime, or for lack of heed,—­but He! 
Will He come fingering of His ended work,
Fright it with His approaching face, or snatch
One day the rolling wonder from its ring,
And hold it quivering, as a wanton child
Might take a nestling from its downy bed,
And having satisfied a careless wish,