“A message:  ’I have heard thee, while remote
I went My rounds among the unfinished stars.’ 
A message:  ’I have left thee to thy ways,
And mastered all thy vileness, for thy hate
I have made to serve the ends of My great love. 
Hereafter will I chain thee down.  To-day
One thing thou art forbidden; now thou knowest
The name thereof:  I told it thee in heaven,
When thou wert sitting at My feet.  Forbear
To let that hidden thing be whispered forth: 
For man, ungrateful (and thy hope it was,
That so ungrateful he might prove), would scorn,
And not believe it, adding so fresh weight
Of condemnation to the doomed world. 
Concerning that, thou art forbid to speak;
Know thou didst count it, falling from My tongue,
A lovely song, whose meaning was unknown,
Unknowable, unbearable to thought,
But sweeter in the hearing than all harps
Toned in My holy hollow.  Now thine ears
Are opened, know it, and discern and fear,
Forbearing speech of it for evermore.’”

So said, it turned, and with a cry of joy,
As one released, went up:  and it was dawn,
And all boughs dropped with dew, and out of mist
Came the red sun and looked into the cave.

But the dragon, left a-tremble, called to him,
From the nether kingdom, certain of his friends,—­
Three whom he trusted, councillors accursed. 
A thunder-cloud stooped low and swathed the place
In its black swirls, and out of it they rushed,
And hid them in recesses of the cave,
Because they could not look upon the sun,
Sith light is pure.  And Satan called to them,—­
All in the dark, in his great rage he spake: 
“Up,” quoth the dragon; “it is time to work,
Or we are all undone.”  And he did hiss,
And there came shudderings over land and trees,
A dimness after dawn.  The earth threw out
A blinding fog, that crept toward the cave,
And rolled up blank before it like a veil,—­
curtain to conceal its habiters. 
Then did those spirits move upon the floor,
Like pillars of darkness, and with eyes aglow. 
One had a helm for covering of the scars
That seamed what rested of a goodly face;
He wore his vizor up, and all his words
Were hollower than an echo from the hills: 
He was hight Make.  And, lo, his fellow-fiend
Came after, holding down his dastard head,
Like one ashamed:  now this for craft was great;
The dragon honored him.  A third sat down
Among them, covering with his wasted hand
Somewhat that pained his breast.

And when the fit
Of thunder, and the sobbings of the wind,
Were lulled, the dragon spoke with wrath and rage,
And told them of his matters:  “Look to this,
If ye be loyal”; adding, “Give your thoughts,
And let me have your counsel in this need.”

One spirit rose and spake, and all the cave
Was full of sighs, “The words of Make the Prince,
Of him once delegate in Betelgeux: 
Whereas of late the manner is to change,
We know not where ’t will end; and now my words
Go thus:  give way, be peaceable, lie still
And strive not, else the world that we have won
He may, to drive us out, reduce to naught.