He lay upon the leafy mould,
his face upon earth's bosom cold,
aswoon in overwhelming bliss,
enchanted of an elvish kiss,
seeing within his darkened eyes
the light that for no darkness dies,
the loveliness that doth not fade,
though all in ashes cold be laid.
Then folded in the mists of sleep
he sank into abysses deep,
drowned in an overwhelming grief
for parting after meeting brief;
a shadow and a fragrance fair
lingered, and waned, and was not there.
Forsaken, barren, bare as stone,
the daylight found him cold, alone.
This is what I'm currently reading, and I am - to put it simply - amazed. I always knew Tolkien was a good poet and had a gift with language, but
The Gest of Beren and Lúthien in
The Lays of Beleriand (part of the
History of Middle Earth series) is just incredible.
My experience with English language poetry is undoubtedly more limited than that of many native speakers', but I have seldom if ever read anything as beautiful as
The Gest. It just flows perfectly, easily, beautifully and neither telling the story or poetic language dominates or disturbs the other.
Now, my first question is, you who have read
The Gest, how do you feel about it? Were you as impressed as me? (Note though that I'm only through to Canto IV.)
My second question is not only related to
The Gest itself, but to Tolkien's writing in general. I read a few lines of
The Gest aloud to
A Little Green and her first comment was: "Why did a person who could write like that bother to write prose?"
I think that is an interesting question to which there might be more answers further in
The Lays of Beleriand than I have read, or in the other parts of HoME, but I'd like to hear more answers from you. Why did Tolkien start to focus on prose? Why did he (or did he?) prefer the metre seen in for example
The Lay of the Children of Húrin, when at least to someone with my degree of education he seems far more fluent and talented in the kind of metre found in
The Gest?
Any discussion concerning
The Gest of Beren and Lúthien and the metre he used there (forgive my lack of knowledge on the names of the metres in English poetry) is very welcome.
