Running out of Creativity?
 

This may be an insignificient thing, but I thought it was worth a notice.

This is from the lay of Aothan and Il%$#. Do you notice first line's the similiarity with the words of Gandalf about ents in LOTR? And the second line appears in the poetry in LOTR that described Durin.

Maybe Tolkien was at a loss for words at the time, and shuffled over his other works looking for good lines that he could use again?

I take it you mean the Lay of Aotrou and Itroun. I only recently stumbled upon it, and I don't know which was written first, this or LOTR. I agree that it's a striking resemblance but I wouldn't call it loss of creativity. At least I don't think he consciously looked for old notes. Maybe it was an unconscious thing, he was trying to work out the line that would fit best, and this sprung to mind. Anyway, what would you call this, self-plagiarism?:D

Yes, the Lay of Aotrou and Itroun was where the phrase was in. Thanks for clarifying that. But there is one more reason that I think Tolkien conciously shuffled through old notes. If you read the whole lay, you'd know that only these two sentences bear resemblance to LOTR, and they happen to be STUCK TOGETHER. I think it would be too much of a coincidence to unconciously use two sentences that are right next to each other.

Yes, I admit that it would be hard to sue someone for Self-plagiarism :D