I don't know if it's my favorite, but "Earendil was a Mariner" / "Errantry" is simply astounding.

Proabably the most stirring for me is the pairing of Eomer's "Out of doubt, out of dark to the day's rising..." and the mourning song closing the same chapter.

Long now they sleep

under grass in Gondor by the Great River.

Grey now as tears, gleaming silver,

red then it rolled, roaring water:

foam dyed with blood flamed at sunset;

as beacons' mountains burned at evening;

red fell the dew in Rammas Echor.

The Lament for Boromir. It's so powerful, and I've hand written it over and over just to make sure that the copy I pinned on my wall didn't have any white-out on it.

This is used extremely effectively in the BBC Radio version ...now have an earworm!

Tough call. All 3 of the alliterative Mark poems are wonderful, although I think I prefer "Where are the horse and the Rider." But the echoes of lost history in Gimli's song in Moria are shiver-inducing, and then there is Namarie...

Oh, and I love the bath-song at Crickhollow!

The Troll Song
 

My favourite is The Troll Song by Sam Gamgee:


Troll sat alone on his seat of stone,
And munched and mumbled a bare old bone;
For many a year he had gnawed it near,
For meat was hard to come by.
Done by! Gum by!
In a cave in the hills he dwelt alone,
And meat was hard to come by.


It's an original composition, showing that there is more to Sam than has previously met the eye. ;) I love listening to Tolkien's singing of it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGMFHvxAn4g

That recording is the nearest we're going to get to what Tolkien imagined an 'ordinary' hobbit sounded like when singing. :)

Well I'm reading LotR again after some months and forgot about that drinking song! This one is cool:

Ho! Ho! Ho! to the bottle I go
To heal my heart and drown my woe.
Rain may fall and wind may blow,
And many miles be still to go,
But under a tall tree I will lie,
And let the clouds go sailing by.

Well, for me it has to be a toss up between two song concerning the Elves:

"Light as leaves on lindentree", the song about Tenuviel Aragorn sings to the Hobbits and "I sang of leaves", the haunting beautiful lament Galadriel sings before her farewell to the Fellowship.

Both of these songs simply employ very beautiful, "elfish" imagery and, in a way can be seen as a contrast to one another: In the song about Luthien, it is spring and all is green and jubilant:

The leaves were long, the grass was green
the hemlock-umbels tall and fair
And in the glade a light was seen
Tenuviel was dancing there
To music of a pipe unseen,
And light of stars was in her hair
And in her raiment glimmering

It perfectly embodies that "joy" and "wonder" the Elves radiate.

And then, in Galadriel's song, all that is dying with "falling leaves" and "withering flowers" in preparation for "empty, dead days" The magic of the Elves is draining away and disappearing forever, yet not less beautiful in its waning stage than it was in its zenith in the First Age.

Has to be one of the most memorable, doesn't it? Especially with the lady who's sure otherwise.

I also like the Song of Beren and Lúthien for all its glimmering and shimmering.

Formendacil, as I read the title of this thread, I thought about moving it, but upon seeing the original date, decided that I shan't dare to disturb such artifacts!

I see what you did there :D. Did you know that there is a theory that the "Lady" in "Stairway to Heaven" is a reference to Galadriel?

And on that topic there is of course:

In Dwimordene, in Lorien
Seldom have walked the feet of Men
Few Mortals have seen the light
That lies there ever, long and bright
Galadriel! Galadriel!
Clear is the water in your well
White is the star in your white hand
Unmarred, unstained is leaf and land
In Dwimordene, in Lorien
More fair than thoughts of Mortal Men

*wistful sigh* Not to mention that there lies a potentially untold story here, if we assume that this is a rhyme of the Rohirrim (because of the Dwimordene) then how have they obtained the knowledge about Galadriel's well and "star"(Ring)? Rumors and hearsay? Or has someone of Theoden's folk (perhaps from the time when they still dwelt in the vales of Anduin?) actually been to Lorien and seen Galadriel and her mirror and served her in some unknown quest?

Given how you fell about Rohan generally, you may not have read the section in Unfinished Tales about Cirion and Eorl. When Eorl rode from the North a mist came out of Lorien that sheltered them from Dol Guldur. While useful it rather collectively freaked them out. Also in one of the draft timelin. The Sons of Elrond fought with the Northmen (this was shortly after Celebrían's abduction and no doubt part of their vengeance), maybe they interracted enough with their temporary comrades to pass on some information on Grannie...though the star rereference is a bit indiscreet. Or they might have had dealings with Thranduil's folk who have a similar culture and in earlier times more contact with their southern kin.

I suspect, as with real world nursery rhymes and the like things are only part remembered and context is lost ..maybe the first few lines were familiar and Gandalf supplied the rest?