One Last Night (Elanor's Farewell)
by Mainecoon

Author's Note: This was written... gads.... YEARS ago. I've been tunneling through my packrat-papers and finding poems I'd long ago forgotten the existence of. Nobody, to my knowledge, has ever written about Sam's departure with any involvement from Elanor, dispite the fact that Tolkien himself said she was present.


Won't you stay here one last night?
Sing one last song to me?
Papa, why must you go away
Across the rippling sea?
I'll miss you so.
Papa, you know
It's only with you that I'm free.

Now I'm the one who's torn apart:
I cannot sail away.
Papa, please don't bid farewell.
Stay here with me today!
Teach me the sky
In it's maze so high,
And I'll learn of the stars if I may!

So won't you stay, just one last night?
Sing me a lullaby?
This bouncing babe upon your knee
Has not grown too old to cry.
Kiss me to sleep,
Then in slumber deep
We still can't say good-bye.

I promise, papa, to be good,
And raise my babes with love.
I'll tell them stories you told me
When I was your "little dove."
I remember rhymes
Of your master's times
When the lava fell from high above.

Won't you stay here one last night?
How can I write alone
The doings of the Shire and folk
When I'm out here on my own?
With mama passed on,
And then with you gone,
What path might I be shown?

Hold my hand for one last night.
I am your child for life.
I'll grow, papa, when you have sailed.
Even now I am a wife.
A child shall come soon
In the silvery moon
Who will one day have Sting as her knife.

We'll see the dawn after one last night
Together, and it will pass.
You'll ride off on your pony. I'll be standing here,
With my feet in the feathery grass.
Then I'll go off alone
To the Shire, and back home,
And return as a plain hobbit lass.

...end...