Our names, and he may answer, ’Matters not,
For my part I forget them.’”
                                   Japhet said,
“They might do worse than that, they might deny
That such as you have ever been.”  With that
They answered, “No, thou dost not think it, no!”
And Japhet, being chafed, replied in heat,
“And wherefore? if ye say of what is sworn,
‘He will not do it,’ shall it be more hard
For future men, if any talk on it,
To say, ’He did not do it’?” They replied,
With laughter, “Lo you! he is stout with us. 
And yet he cowered before the poor old snake. 
Sirrah, when you are saved, we pray you now
To bear our might in mind,—­do, sirrah, do;
And likewise tell your sons, ’"The Cedar Tree”
Was a good giant, for he struck me not,
Though he was young and full of sport, and though
I taunted him.’”
                  With that they also passed. 
But there remained who with the shipwright spoke: 
“How wilt thou certify to us thy truth?”
And he related to them all his ways
From the beginning:  of the Voice that called;
Moreover, how the ship of doom was built.

And one made answer, “Shall the mighty God
Talk with a man of wooden beams and bars? 
No, thou mad preacher, no.  If He, Eterne,
Be ordering of His far infinitudes,
And darkness cloud a world, it is but chance,
As if the shadow of His hand had fallen
On one that He forgot, and troubled it.” 
Then said the Master, “Yet,—­who told thee so?”

And from his dais the feigning serpent hissed: 
“Preacher, the light within, it was that shined,
And told him so.  The pious will have dread
Him to declare such as ye rashly told. 
The course of God is one.  It likes not us
To think of Him as being acquaint with change: 
It were beneath Him.  Nay, the finished earth
Is left to her great masters.  They must rule;
They do; and I have set myself between,—­
A visible thing for worship, sith His face
(For He is hard) He showeth not to men. 
Yea, I have set myself ’twixt God and man,
To be interpreter, and teach mankind
A pious lesson by my piety,
He loveth not, nor hateth, nor desires,—­
It were beneath Him.” 
                      And the Master said,
“Thou liest.  Thou wouldst lie away the world,
If He, whom thou hast dared speak against,
Would suffer it.”  “I may not chide with thee,”
It answered, “NOW; but if there come such time
As thou hast prophesied, as I now reign
In all men’s sight, shall my dominion then
Reach to be mighty in their souls.  Thou too
Shalt feel it, prophet.”  And he lowered his head.