Lo you, an image of the times to betide the hope of the
Fellowship of Men. Yet forsooth, it may well be that this bright day
of summer which is now dawning upon us is no image of the beginning of
the day that shall be; but rather shall that day-dawn be cold and grey
and surly; and yet by its light shall men see things as they verily
are, and no longer enchanted by the gleam of the moon and the glamour
of the dream-tide. By such grey light shall wise men and valiant
souls see the remedy, and deal with it, a real thing that may be
touched and handled, and no glory of the heavens to be worshipped from
afar off. And what shall it be, as I told thee before, save that men
shall be determined to be free; yea, free as thou wouldst have them,
when thine hope rises the highest, and thou art thinking not of the
king's uncles, and poll-groat bailiffs, and the villeinage of Essex,
but of the end of all, when men shall have the fruits of the earth and
the fruits of their toil thereon, without money and without price.
The time shall come, John Ball, when that dream of thine that this
shall one day be, shall be a thing that men shall talk of soberly, and
as a thing soon to come about, as even with thee they talk of the
villeins becoming tenants paying their lord quit-rent; therefore, hast
thou done well to hope it; and, if thou heedest this also, as I
suppose thou heedest it little, thy name shall abide by thy hope in
those days to come, and thou shalt not be forgotten.
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