Let it be a consolation to you that nothing,
absolutely nothing, later, will be more frightening than
the games.
Even the rules will not alter, even the sequence;
the people, yes. It is only the players who will not be the
same.
In that dusk not quite late enough for rescue
by the calling voice from the room with the lamp lit,
the hidden hide and the seeker seeks. The seeker fears the
hidden:
and the hidden are rigid with terror of It, of It.
Bandaged and whirled, the blind man turns and turns,
and now in the stillest pond the figures freeze in place,
though the blind white bandage comes, and catches, and
bends
as the fingers walk and walk the anonymous face.
As now, the motionless sought know who is It
in the still still pond, the fond hide-and-seek;
no more than now, the hunter will fear the quarry,
the hiders, the motionless, the terrible meek.
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