Beautiful Words
"...the beauty of the melodies and the interwoven words in the Elven-tongue, even though he [Frodo] understood them little, held him in a spell, as soon as he began to attend to them. Almost it seemed that the words took shape, and visions of far lands and bright things that he had never yet imagined opened out before him; and the firelit hall became like a golden mist above seas of foams that sighed upon the margins of the world. Then the enchantment became more and more dreamlike, until he felt that an endless river of swelling gold and silver was flowing over him, too multitudinous for its pattern to be comprehended; it became part of the throbbing air about him, and it drenched and drowned him. Swiftly he sank under its shining weight into a deep realm of sleep." - Tolkien, Lord of the Rings
"I sit beside the fire and think
Of all that I have seen,
Of meadow-flowers and butterflies
In summers that have been.
Of yellow leaves and gossamer
In autumns that there were,
With morning mist and silver sun
And wind upon my hair.
I sit beside the fire and think
Of how the world will be
When winter comes without a spring
That I shall never see.
For still there are so many things
That I have never seen:
In every wood in every spring
There is a different green.
I sit beside the fire and think
Of people long ago
And people who will see a world
That I shall never know.
But all the while I sit and think
Of times that were before,
I listen for returning feet
And voices at my door." – Tolkien (Bilbo in Rivendell)
"They stood on a wet floor of polished stone, the doorstep, as it were, of a rough-hewn gate of rock opening dark behind them. But in front a thin veil of water was hung, so near that Frodo could have put an outstretched arm into it. It faced westward. The level shafts of the setting sun behind beat upon it, and the red light was broken into many flickering beams of ever-changing colour. It was as if they stood at the window of some elven-tower, curtained with threaded jewels of silver and gold, ruby, sapphire and amethyst, all kindled with an uncomsuming fire." – Tolkien
"In Western lands beneath the Sun
The flowers may rise in Spring,
The trees may bud, the waters run,
The merry finches sing.
Or there maybe ‘tis cloudless night
And swaying beeches bear
The Elven-stars as jewels white
Amid their branching hair.
Though here at journey’s end I lie
In darkness buried deep,
Beyond all towers strong and high,
Beyond all mountains steep,
Above all shadows rides the Sun
And Stars forever dwell:
I will not say the day is done,
Nor bid the Stars farewell." – Tolkien (Samwise)
"Soon Celeborn and Galadriel and their folk would turn eastward…to their own country. They had journeyed thus far by the west-ways, for they had much to speak of with Elrond and with Gandalf…Often long after the hobbits were wrapped in sleep they would sit together under the stars, recalling the ages that were gone and all their joys and labours in the world, or holding council, concerning the days to come. If any wanderer had chanced to pass, little would he have seen or heard, and it would have seemed to him only that he saw grey figures, carved in stone, memorials of forgotten things now lost in unpeople lands. For they did not move or speak with mouth, looking from mind to mind; and only their shining eyes stirred and kindled as their thoughts went to and fro." – Tolkien
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