“Not yet. 
O, let it not be yet.  Where is my God? 
How am I saved, if I and mine be saved
Alone?  I am not saved, for I have loved
My country and my kin.  Must I, Thy thrall,
Over their lands be lord when they are gone? 
I would not:  spare them.  Mighty.  Spare Thyself,
For Thou dost love them greatly,—­and if not ...”

Another praying unremote, a Voice
Calm as the solitude between wide stars.

“Where is my God, who loveth this lost world,—­
Lost from its place and name, but won for Thee? 
Where is my multitude, my multitude,
That I shall gather?” And white smoke went up
From incense that was burning, but there gleamed
No light of fire, save dimly to reveal
The whiteness rising, as the prayer of him
That mourned.  “My God, appear for me, appear;
Give me my multitude, for it is mine. 
The bitterness of death I have not feared,
To-morrow shall Thy courts, O God, be full. 
Then shall the captive from his bonds go free,
Then shall the thrall find rest, that knew not rest
From labor and from blows.  The sorrowful—­
That said of joy, ‘What is it?’ and of songs,
’We have not heard them’—­shall be glad and sing;
Then shall the little ones that knew not Thee,
And such as heard not of Thee, see Thy face,
And seeing, dwell content.” 
                            The prayer of Noah. 
He cried out in the darkness, “Hear, O God,
Hear HIM:  hear this one; through the gates of death,
If life be all past praying for, O give
To Thy great multitude a way to peace;
Give them to HIM.

“But yet,” said he, “O yet,
If there be respite for the terrible,
The proud, yea, such as scorn Thee,—­and if not.... 
Let not mine eyes behold their fall.” 
He cried,
“Forgive.  I have not done Thy work, Great Judge,
With a perfect heart; I have but half believed,
While in accustomed language I have warned;
And now there is no more to do, no place
For my repentance, yea, no hour remains
For doing of that work again.  O, lost,
Lost world!” And while he prayed, the daylight dawned.

And Noah went up into the ship, and sat
Before the Lord.  And all was still; and now
In that great quietness the sun came up,
And there were marks across it, as it were
The shadow of a Hand upon the sun,—­
Three fingers dark and dread, and afterward
There rose a white, thick mist, that peacefully
Folded the fair earth in her funeral shroud,
The earth that gave no token, save that now
There fell a little trembling under foot.

And Noah went down, and took and hid his face
Behind his mantle, saying, “I have made
Great preparation, and it may be yet,
Beside my house, whom I did charge to come
This day to meet me, there may enter in
Many that yesternight thought scorn of all
My bidding.”  And because the fog was thick,
He said, “Forbid it, Heaven, if such there be,