He spoke, and his voice came clogged and painful as though it urged from
the matted pores of the earth itself.

"There is none left to whom you may go but me only. Do not be afraid,
but come to me and I will give you these wild delights which have been
long forgotten. All things which are crude and riotous, all that is
gross and without limit is mine. You shall not think and suffer any
longer; but you shall feel so surely that the heat of the sun will be
happiness: the taste of food, the wind that blows upon you, the ripe
ease of your body--these things will amaze you who have forgotten them.
My great arms about you will make you furious and young again; you shall
leap on the hillside like a young goat and sing for joy as the birds
sing. Leave this crabbed humanity that is barred and chained away
from joy and come with me, to whose ancient quietude at the last both
Strength and Beauty will come like children tired in the evening,
returning to the freedom of the brutes and the birds, with bodies
sufficient for their pleasure and with no care for Thought or foolish
curiosity."

But the Thin Woman drew back from his hand, saying "It is not lawful to
turn again when the journey is commenced, but to go forward to whatever
is appointed; nor may we return to your meadows and trees and sunny
places who have once departed from them. The torments of the mind may
not be renounced for any easement of the body until the smoke that
blinds us is blown away, and the tormenting flame has fitted us for that
immortal ecstasy which is the bosom of God. Nor is it lawful that ye
great ones should beset the path of travellers, seeking to lure them
away with cunning promises. It is only at the cross-roads ye may sit
where the traveller will hesitate and be in doubt, but on the highway ye
have no power."

"You are free of me," said the third man, "until you are ready to come
to me again, for I only of all things am steadfast and patient, and
to me all return in their seasons. There are brightnesses in my secret
places in the woods, and lamps in my gardens beneath the hills, tended
by the angels of God, and behind my face there is another face not hated
by the Bright Ones."

So the three Absolutes arose and strode mightily away; and as they went
their thunderous speech to each other boomed against the clouds and the
earth like a gusty wind, and, even when they had disappeared, that great
rumble could be heard dying gently away in the moon