He has lisped one word only to
me in the desert--'Passion!' I have dreamed he might learn to say
'Friendship' in that land."
And Reason said, "Put him down!"
And she said, "I will carry him so--with one arm, and with the other I will
fight the water."
He said, "Lay him down on the ground. When you are in the water you will
forget to fight, you will think only of him. Lay him down." He said, "He
will not die. When he finds you have left him alone he will open his wings
and fly. He will be in the Land of Freedom before you. Those who reach
the Land of Freedom, the first hand they see stretching down the bank to
help them shall be Love's. He will be a man then, not a child. In your
breast he cannot thrive; put him down that he may grow."
And she took her bosom from his mouth, and he bit her, so that the blood
ran down on to the ground. And she laid him down on the earth; and she
covered her wound. And she bent and stroked his wings. And I saw the hair
on her forehead turned white as snow, and she had changed from youth to
age.
And she stood far off on the bank of the river. And she said, "For what do
I go to this far land which no one has ever reached? Oh, I am alone! I am
utterly alone!"
And Reason, that old man, said to her, "Silence! What do you hear?"
And she listened intently, and she said, "I hear a sound of feet, a
thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands, and they beat this
way!"
He said, "They are the feet of those that shall follow you.
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