03 September 2013

A Portrait of Joy

As the final battle of Middle Earth wanes, Aragorn tends to a wounded Faramir.
Then taking two leaves, he laid them on his hands and breathed on them, and then he crushed them, and straightway a living freshness filled the room, as if the air itself awoke and tingled, sparkling with joy. And then he cast the leaves into the bowls of steaming water that were brought to him, and at once all hearts were lightened. For the fragrance that came to each was like a memory of dewy mornings of unshadowed sun in some land of which the fair world in Spring is itself but a fleeting memory.
--J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, p. 847

No comments: