Running out of Creativity?

[Eorl of Rohan]

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

ere fire was found or iron hewn,
when young was mountain under moon

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?