Pure, naked, fragile hope

This is a dialogue of Sir Walter Raleigh when he meets Queen Elizabeth. When he is telling her that the explorer's only weapon is hope. Amazing dialogue and done extremely well by Clive Owen, from Elizabeth: The Golden Age.

--

You live with fear, in the grip
of fear - fear of storms, fear of
sickness on board, fear of the
immensity. What if you never
escape? How can you escape?
There’s nowhere to go. So you
must drive your fear down, deep
into your belly, and study your
charts, and watch your compass,
and pray for a fair wind - and
hope.
Pure naked fragile hope,
when all
your senses scream at you, Lost!
Lost! Imagine it. Day after day,
staring west, the rising sun on
your back, the setting sun in
your eyes, hoping, hoping -
At first it’s no more than a haze
on the horizon, the ghost of a
haze, the pure line corrupted.
But clouds do that, and storms.
So you watch, you watch.
Then it’s a smudge, a shadow on
the far water. For a day, for
another day, the stain slowly
spreads along the horizon, and
takes form - until on the third
day you let yourself believe.
You
dare to whisper the word - land!
Land. Life. Resurrection. The
true adventure. Coming out of the
vast unknown, out of the
immensity, into safe harbour at
last. That - that - is the New
World.