One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices
around you kept shouting their bad advice–
though the whole house began
to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles.
"Mend my life!" each voice
cried. But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers at the
very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible.
It was already late enough,
and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches
and stones. But little by little,
as you left their voices behind, the stars began to
burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly
recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do– determined to save
the only life you could save.