This time the silence was longer and seemed almost a conclusion, until I broke it with one last question.
“Do you think that was actually the devil who appeared to you, or an illusion brought on by the state of your mind?”
He answered me very quietly. “The hand of God is seen in strange places.”
ROBERT CRUISE MCMANUS.
Ballade
(Translated from a fifteenth century lyric of Charles d’Orleans)
Once in the weary wood of dull Distress
Where Fate condemned my leaden feet to stray
It chanced that Venus, now my comfortress,
Besought to know where I did take my way.