Yet However Cliche-Ridden and Trite and Commonplace the Saying Most Assuredly Is, Hope Doth Indeed Spring Eternal...

Sam[wise Gamgee] struggled with his own weariness...Then at last, to keep himself awake, he crawled from the hiding place and looked out. The land seemed full of creaking and cracking and sly noises...Far above the Ephel Duath...the night-sky was still dim and pale.

There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him.

For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.


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