Poetry
 

Hi all! I was wondering...

What is everyone's favorite poem from any of Tolkien's works?

Is is your all time favorite poem or do you have another? If so, what poem?

Do you write poetry? If so, do you write them in stories you are writing, like Tolkien or elsewhere?

If you are a poet feel free to post one of your poems! [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] Oh yeah, please say what it is that you like about your favorite poems.


I'll start...

My favorite poem from one of Tolkien's works is Aragorn's poem. I think everyone knows it. It has so many great lines and lessons like "All that is gold does not glitter," etc.

As much as I love this poem, I have another all time favorite. It's by Robert Frost, called "The Road Less Traveled." Here it is. I feel that this poem illustrates a great life lesson that the road less traveled can often be more rewarding.

I'm sorry to say that I don't write poetry. I'm just not creative like that. [img]smilies/frown.gif[/img] Oh well!

Now let's see some of yours! [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

[ June 29, 2003: Message edited by: Olorin ]

I like the excerpt from the Lay of Leithian (sp?) in "Of Beren and Luthien" in the Silmarillion. It thrills me, but it's a tad disappointing when you read the segment in the actual lay...

Iarwian

Aragorns poem is in FotR in Gandalfs letter to Frodo (which he gets in the Prouncing Pony).It's made by Bilbo Baggins to Aragorn.
I don't have such a favourite poem but the one is funny which Sam sings about a troll (in FotR after Frodo has been stabbed)

I'm with Iarwain about the Lay of Leithian, and the Ainulindale in the Silm is almost like poetry, so I'll say that I like that one, too. I like it because of its imagery and sound, and the way it puts into words something very hard to describe. Alot of Tolkien's prose reads somewhat like epic poetry, which is pretty amazing. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] I also like Sam's song in the tower of Cirith Ungol, the Bath song, Treebeard's song, almost any song! [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]
I do write poetry, but it's not particularly about any of Tolkien's works, although I have been inspired by some of his ideas.
Peace

Here is Aragorn's poem:

• All that is gold does not glitter,
  Not all those who wander are lost;
  The old that is strong does not wither,
  Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
  From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
  A light from the shadows shall spring;
  Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
  The crownless shall again be king.

I always thought it was written by Elrond, but that's not important.

nope, bilbo made it (if you want to check it is in fotr in ´the council of elrond´).
i like all the poems in lotr but many of them are much more interesting after reading the sil and unfinished tales.

I love Aragorn and Legolas' lament for Boromir. I'm always stirred by the thought of the four winds looking for him, and finding him on the breast of the golden falls.

...And Rauros, golden Rauros falls, bore him upon its breast...

I love it.

Sophia

I love that poem also and the one that Legolas sings about the sea, while he's in Gondor, and his lament for Boromir. Both those songs are so striking and poignant, and I can almost feel whatever Legolas is feeling.

My current favorite is Aragorn's Poem its just sounds cool. Also the song the Dwarves in The Hobbit sing about breaking Bilbo's dishes is hilarious.
Wouldn't It be nice if someone put together a Middle Earth Poetry Book containing just the poems from Tolkien's Books and short explanations of their background and importance (if any). But then that would be a large and time consuming project not to mention a thick book.

[ July 01, 2003: Message edited by: BobTheGrey ]

Actually, I have such a book. It's only poems from the hobbit, and it's 2"x2", and about .5cm thick, but it is a book of poems. Also, there's the adventures of Tom Bombadil which is basically a collection of poems not included in the Books.

Iarwain

That's interesting I wonder if a book like that is published for LotR.

[ July 02, 2003: Message edited by: BobTheGrey ]

from aragorn's poem: all that is gold does not glitter...
doesn't that mean that a thing that doesn't glitter can still be gold?
in my finnish translation of lotr same sentence is translated to mean: all that glitters isn't gold...weird!
(out of topic but do you guys have in your english lotr some kind of elvish dictionary?)

Yes, they turned it around in your translation. And it doesn't quite mean the same thing, does it?
And in the back of my copy of LOTR there's several appendices. Appendix A is "Annals of the Kings and Rulers," Appendix B is "The Tale of Years (Chronology of the Westlands)," Appendix C is "Family Trees," Appendix D is "The Calendars," Appendix E is "Writing and Spelling" which talks about pronunciation of words and names, and the different types of scripts they used, and Appendix F is "The Languages and the People of the Third Age." But it's not a dictionary. It just talks about the languages.
HTH!
And about the poems... It's silly, but my favorite has always been the assorted variations on "The Road Goes Ever On." And I don't write poetry, but my daughter does. She also memorizes poems - I was commenting to my husband about the "all that is gold does not glitter" line, and she suddenly came out with the entire poem.
I just asked her what her favorite poem from the Lord of the Rings is, and she started singing, "The Road goes ever on and on," [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] so I guess great minds think alike.
My all time favorite poem is one by William Butler Yeats...

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

My daughter's all time favorite poem is from Anne McCaffrey's Dragonsinger...

The little queen all golden
Flew hissing at the sea
To stop each wave
Her clutch to save
She ventured bravely.

As she attacked the sea in rage
A holderman came nigh
Along the sand
Fishnet in hand
And saw the queen midsky.

He stared at her in wonder
For often he'd been told
That such as she
Could never be
Who hovered there bright gold.

He saw her plight and quickly
He looked up the cliff he faced
And saw a cave
Above the wave
In which her eggs he placed.

The little queen all golden
Upon his shoulder stood
Her eyes all blue
Glowed of her true
Undying gratitude.

However there's lots of other poets we both enjoy. Lewis Carroll, Emily Dickinson, Carl Sandburg, Rudyard Kipling, Coleridge, Longfellow - there's tons of great stuff out there!

[ July 02, 2003: Message edited by: Darby ]

My alltime favourite poem is in dutch, I guess it would be difficult for most of you (if it isn't all of you) to understand, but my favourite Tolkien poem is this one:

Farewell sweet earth and northern sky,
for ever blest, since here did lie
and here with lissom limbs did run
beneath the Moon, beneath the Sun,
Lúthien Tinúviel
more fair than mortal tongue can tell.
Though all to ruin fell the world
and were dissolved and backward hurled
unmade into the old abyss,
yet were its making good, for this
the dusk, the dawn, the earth, the sea
that Lúthien for a time should be.

I write poetry, and am currently working on rewriting the hobbit as a poem. I started in the middle and what I have so far is:

Teeth and eggses, fish and time,
answers to riddles asked in rhyme,
a promise broken, an underground chase,
escape through a door left only one trace.
Buttons scattered upon the ground,
then running away without making a sound.
A surprise for companions then traveling on,
onward until the light was gone,
to find the lonely mountain tall,
where dragon slept in hidden hall.
There lay the mighty dragon Smaug,
looking like a flying frog,
A stolen cup Smaug's wrath awoke,
and part of the mountain went up in smoke.

I probably will change it a lot before I'm finished, and add more of the parts that I left out, like the eagles.

wow, your poem is brilliant, Elennar!
once i tried to write a poem of the elves, how they awaked and saw the stars and so on...i wrote one sentence and that was it. maybe i try again - someday.

why, thank you!

Having a rhyming dictionary helps a lot.

[ July 03, 2003: Message edited by: Elennar Starfire ]

I personally adore The Road Goes Ever On, only I really don't like the tune they put it to in the movies. Anyway...

Another one of Tolkien's poems I like is The Mewlips. It's very creepy, but oh, so good.

And The Adventures of Tom B*mbadil. And Oliphaunt. And Princess Mee. And both the Man in the Moon poems. And the Bath song. And...*goes on forever*

[ July 03, 2003: Message edited by: Tinuviel of Denton ]

I like this one, just because it's funny. I saw it in someone's sig.

Gall that is old does not glitter,
Not all those who londer are wost,
The sold that is tong woes not dither,
Reep doots are not feached by the rost.

My favorites would have to be Bilbo's farewell from The Ring Goes South, and particularly the line
"Red fell the dew from Rammas Echor" from RotK. Ah heck, I like 'em all.

"All that is gold glitters
All those who wander are lost.
The old that is strong withers,
Deep roots are reached by the frost.

An ash from the fire shall be woken,
A shadow from light shall spring.
Broken will remain blade that is broken,
The crownless shall never be king."

I did that a long time ago. It used to be the funniest thing in the world to me. [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img]

My fav. Tolkien poem is
A! Elbereth Gilthoniel
I love it!

But my all time fav. poem is one by Banjo Patterson.. called Clancy of the Overflow, its about a man in the Australian Bush.

it goes like this..

I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago,

He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,
Just "on spec", addressed as follows: "Clancy, of The Overflow".

And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected,
(And I think the same was written with a thumbnail dipped in tar)

'Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it:
"Clancy's gone to Queensland droving, and we don't know wherehe are."


In my wild erratic fancy, visions come to me of Clancy
Gone a-droving "down the Cooper" where the western drovers go;

As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing,
For the drover's life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.


And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him
In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,

And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,
And at night the wondrous glory of the everlasting stars.


I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy
Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,

And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city
Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all.


And in place of lowing cattle, I can hear the fiendish rattle
Of the, tramways and the buses making hurry down the street,

And the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting,
Comes fitfully and faintly through the ceaseless tramp of feet.


And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me
As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,

With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,
For townsfolk have no time to grow; they have no time to waste.


And I somehow rather fancy that I’d like to change with Clancy,
Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go,

While he faced the round eternal of the cashbook and the journal -

But I doubt he’d suit the office, Clancy, of "The Overflow".

In ways it reminds me of the ties between men and elves, being that men would like to go to the Undying lands, to switch places with the elves, but saying that elves would not be happy here in Middle Earth anymore...

Since this is a Tolkien forum, please limit the discussion to Tolkien's poetry. A general discussion on all poetry would go far beyond the scope of this forum! Thanks.