Aragorn, or Type and Archetype

by Ethuil

An older poem of mine about the similarities between Aragorn and Jesus, about Aragorn being in some way modelled on Christ, and about my obsession with Aragorn at that time. Something like a prayer.

Aragorn, or: Type and Archetype

How can You watch me waste myself

In those sublunary dreamscapes

Woven of the past, the never-to-be

And a beauty and vigour too close to Yourself

To pass unlonged-for by me?

You watch me dance into captivity,

Enthralled by this wanderer of the forests,

Mysterious ranger of my tangled dreams.

Have you not searched further, known more deeply,

Suffered more nobly, served more meekly,

Intimate stranger, unfathomed revealer,

(Without even athelas) passionate healer,

Wielder of a Flame greater than Anduril,

The double-edged Sword of Life?

Would it help

If You clothed Your eyes in grey-blue iris,

Threw some hardihood-hardened muscles

(Not to forget a worn ranger outfit)

Over Your spirit and grew

Your dark locks visible?

Your so familiar, enigmatic eyes I see in faith

Veil and reveal an even deeper quest,

A wider range from masked and dispossessed,

Despised but rightful heir to glorious King,

Restorer of all fallen hopes.

All his heroic, melancholic majesty that bears the secret burden

Are Yours – a fine-spun fantasy in him, reality in You –

Why should it then be just so hard

To take my heart again – Your rightful heirloom –

And make Yourself once more at home in me?!

Winter 2001/2002