The Return of the King

“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tower

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.”  

-- J.R.R. Tolkien