A Fable for a Late Hour
It
happened in the bloom of my youth, that as I made my way
through
a forest the path became overgrown and I could not
go on.
Then there was one who came from a shady grove, a
lovely
woman in a white garment, and I was dazzled by the
brightness
of it. Yet though she was beautiful she had a
white
bandage round her forehead. And her laugh tinkled
through
the forest and she said ‘I will show you the way.’
And I
said ‘How can you show me the way since your eyes are
covered
with a bandage?’ and she only laughed the louder
and her
laugh rippled and trilled and echoed among the
trees
and the rocks. And she took my hand and said only
‘Come’
and I followed her, higher and higher, among crags
and
cliffs. And at last I came to a cliff where I could not
follow
while she climbed higher to rocks where there was no
hold
and it seemed to me that she took wings and vanished
from
my sight.
And I
trudged slowly and sadly back down the path and the
sun
had moved across the sky, and now I was in the middle
of my
years. Then a figure came to meet me, a woman wearing
a
black cloak, whose visage was dark also. Her voice was
hollow,
like the echos of a tomb. ‘You came with my sister,
Faith,’
she said. ‘Many go with her to the cliffs but none
can follow
her there, she flies so high. Now you must come
with
me.’
And
she took another path, and it led into a swamp. Now she
tested
the ground with a stick, and she gave me a stick
also,
and we had to try the ground every step of the way.
Slower
and slower we went, and the sun went further and
further
across the sky, and at last overcome by fatigue I
fell
to the ground, and there I slept.
And
now it was night, and it was late in my years, and I
heard
light footsteps, and I saw one who came carrying a
lantern.
In the flickering light she could have been young
or
old, handsome or plain, and her clothes were hard to
make
out in the light of the lantern, now seeming like
rags,
now like rich finery.
‘You
came with my sister, Doubt,’ she said. ‘She lives in
the swamp,
but few who enter ever leave.’ And she held up
her
lantern to show a path and she said: ‘You may come with
me or
you may not, and if you come you may live with me or
not,
and if you live with me you may fare well or not.’
And I
went with her, and it was as she said. For she is
joyful
and sorrowful, complaisant and contrary, prudent and
fantastical.
She is the voice of wisdom and unreason, the
picture
of softness, the image of obduracy.
In
the evenings there will be bitter words and angry
silences
and in the mornings she will be loving, melting,
yielding.
And so shall I be, for I have become as she is,
and
she is part of me, and her name is Hope. I have chosen
her
as she has chosen me, and I shall be with her in the
hours
or years that are left to us.
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