Despair Overcome
And many indeed saw them and the light that shone about them as they
came down from the walls and went hand in hand to the Houses of Healing.
~Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
The cold dawn loomed over her as she pondered unaware,
A walk in the brisk autumn air to whisk away the chilling nightmare,
Steps on a bridge and looks into the churning water,
“It is utterly dark in the abyss before my feet, but whether there is any light behind me
I cannot tell. For I cannot turn yet. I wait for some stroke of doom.”
In despair she had gone there, after her lover proved not to be,
With the price of a life she would finally be free,
Yet she felt more trapped as the hooded man
Sneered over her and dared her to stand
Against he who no man could defeat.
Yet she stared into the darkness of that despairing abyss,
As she realized the one who had killed all her freedom, joy, and bliss,
So she glared into that dark rider’s hood,
Containing in it all terror and fear of the world.
“But no living man am I! You look upon a woman.”
saith she as she plunged her sword and lost feeling in her hand,
Then she saw the glorious rays explode,
Right through the clouds, giving her new hope,
And suddenly her winter passed, and the sun shone on her.
She would never again return to that place,
Where mothers and fathers and children hide their disgrace,
She looked out on the fields and rivers and more,
Across the blood-stained fields of Plennor,
She turned her back to the window and saw a man who gently said,
Let us cross the River and in happier days in fair Ithilien
let us dwell and there make a garden.
They married in spring the very next year
And before long, her baby was here,
She was jubilant and never again despaired in strife,
Just goes to show what can happen when one saves a life.
References from Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Ch. 6 and 15
