Must I accept the barren Gift?-learn death, and lose my Mastery?Then let them know whose blood and breathwill take the Gift and set them free:whose is the voice and whose the mindto set at naught the well-sung Game-when finned Finality arrivesand calls me by my secret Name.Not old enough to love as yet, but old enough to die, indeed--the death-fear bites my throat and heart, fanged cousin to the Pale One's breed. But past the fear lies life for all-perhaps for me: and, past my dread, past loss of Mastery and life, the Sea shall yet give up Her dead! Lone Power, I accept your Gift! Freely I make death a part of me; By my accept it is boundinto the lives of all the Sea-yet what I do now binds to ita gift I feel of equal worth: I take Death with me, out of Time, and make of it a path, a birth! Let the teeth come! As they tear me, they tear Your ancient hate for aye--so rage, proud Power! Fail again, and see my blood teach Death to die! . Diane Duane
About This Quote

This quote comes from the English poet Rudyard Kipling. The expression is based on a poem called "The Gift" or "Gift-Giving," which Kipling wrote for his son Douglas when he was about eighteen months old. In the poem, Kipling imagines what his son's life would be like if he were given a gift of a toy and told not to play with it. In the poem, the child is hurt by the toy and eventually dies from his injuries.

Kipling compares his son to a small boat that is tossed about in a storm and then thrown upon the shore. Just as the boat could not survive in its state, so too can a person's life be "tossed about in a storm," but if you give it a little help along the way, "it gets home."

Source: Deep Wizardry

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