Time had come and gone, ages rolled by like ocean waves, and civilizations had come in and gone out like the tide. The old ent was weary of wandering the earth. His realm had grown smaller, his people fewer and more scattered, until at last he saw them no more. Long it had been since he heard the ponderous, flowing words of his native tongue. Long it had been since he had spoken it save to himself. He stood, sometimes, for a century in one spot. Moss grew over him, his feet rooted themselves so that, when he roused himself, it was difficult to move.
He was seldom seen by any living creature. He wandered far into forests that were strange to him. Here the trees could not be roused; here there was no whisper of life within them. He no longer spoke to them, no longer listened for the rustle and chatter of branches. He had outlived his time. Yet still he went on, for somewhere, perhaps, there might be a lonely entwife waiting for him.
Fair she had been, his Umbel-marine-lelindorindianin … Her name ran through his mind like water over stones. In the depths of some forest which to men was ancient, but to him merely a brake of saplings, he would sing her full name, cupping his hands to his mouth and calling out to her. The sound rang out like a great bell, and then died away, and she never replied.
Sometimes he stood in sleep beneath a waterfall, and thought he heard far away his own name being called; but when he stepped out from beneath it, the sound would vanish.
When he looked into a pool, he was always surprised at how very tree-ish he looked. Would his Fimbrethil even recognize him? Would he recognize her? How old the world was growing, and he along with it; how he longed to leave it. Beyond the circles of the world, there she might be waiting for him. He cast his mind back, further and further, until he saw her as she had been when he first met her; slender, with mossy curling hair and eyes deep, deep as heaven. She reached out her hand to him, and he reached out his hand to her, and for a while they were happy together.
Why had they not remained together? If she would not stay, then he should have followed her. If she had been destroyed, he would rather have been destroyed along with her than to go on for so long that even he felt it was getting rather late in the world.
One night he stood beneath a little waterfall that spilled over a shelf, and closed his eyes. The weariness he felt was root deep, sapping him of strength and desire to move.
This was a pleasant place. The falling water splashed over him and ran down his beard in cool rivulets. He looked up at the stars. They had not changed, at least. Their brightness pierced his heart, and he thought of the elves that had once roamed through Fangorn when Fangorn covered vast acres of land. Now here was the last of Fangorn, who had outlived the elves, and the dark lords, and his own race. He heaved a deep sigh and sank into sleep, further than he had ever allowed himself to sink. He struck his roots deep into the soil and gave himself over to forgetfulness.
A long age went by and there he stood, an old, old tree while around him the forest grew and decayed and was cleared.
An axe was laid to his trunk and still he slept on. The tree crashed to the ground and was lopped of its branches and made into lumber. And so the last of the ents, and the eldest, ended.