As the Fellowship ambled slowly along,

Gandalf noticed that something was wrong.

His staff-light was dimming, the shadows were gray,

If this kept up, they might wander astray!

But Gandalf was wise, quite a clever old chap.

So he began fanning the flame with his cap.

The light flared up once and was gone with a flash.

Gandalf his teeth he began to gnash.

Without a light they would sure come to grief,

With a lack of food and a lack of sleep.

Nothing could be seen, not a hand, nor a face.

Gandalf's memory of the place was erased!

"Hello?" he said, "Are you all still around?"

He searched and he called, but nothing was found.

Not a trace of a Hobbit, or Man, or Elf.

Gandalf could scarcely locate himself.

What had happened to his companions great and small?

Let me tell you, nothing good became of them all!

Pippin the hobbit, the inquisitive lad,

Wandered off into something dreadfully bad.

As he crept like a shadow, his chest in a spasm,

The stone gave away and he plunged down a chasm.

Merry the hobbit, Pippin's best friend,

Crawled through a tunnel that didn't have an end.

Half-way through the web-strewn corridor,

He spied an orc from Mordor.

Nothing good came of him, to say the least.

He was carried off to be an orc's feast.

Gimli the dwarf wandered straight and true,

His finely-honed axe ever ready to hew.

And to shatter the silence of the dimmest mine,

The sound of a loud roar caused Gimli to whine.

And to tell you what happened, I'm afraid it was the end.

The Balrog made short work of our Dwarfish friend.

And Aragorn, Strider, Elessar,

I'm afraid the ranger didn't make it far.

As he went through the dark with hardly a care,

He realized his companions were not really there.

He felt he was stuck; he looked down at his feet.

They were stuck in some tar, what a bad end to meet!

Frodo and Sam, the inseparable pair,

Wandered along in the shallow cave air.

As the Hobbits crept around a bend they found,

A great pile of stone, a loathsome Orc mound.

They hoped it would hold up their miniscule weight,

They didn't find out the truth until it was too late.

As they plummeted quickly to the depths beneath,

Frodo and Sam grasped a root with their teeth.

Who knows, maybe they're there to this day.

If they weren't rescued, that's all I can say.

Boromir of Gondor, that proud, stuck-up man,

Found himself walking alone with no plan.

His heart was a flutter; his mind was unclear.

His thoughts were a clutter of worries and fears.

As he ambled along, not exactly aware,

An army of Goblins seized him by the hair.

What became of him is rather a mystery.

It isn't engraved in the annals of history.

But Gandalf the Grey, the cause of the trouble,

Tripped and fell into a pile of rubble.

When at last he emerged, his injuries were great.

Quite silly to say, "I am never late."

I'm afraid he was in fact rather late.

But no one knows what was his fate.

Gollum the slick was behind forty feet;

Sniffing around to find something to eat.

When the light was extinguished, the trail gone cold,

The Slinker, the Stinker, became quickly less bold.

He crawled along right over a pass.

He tripped, he slipped into a crevasse.

And Legolas, out of them all,

Was the only one who came out of the hall.

He chanced upon a glittering thing.

It was, in fact, the cursed golden ring.

He picked it up in his slender hand.

He decided to take it to the Black Land.

He soon came out under the sky.

Breathing the air with a gentle sigh.

This couldn't have been avoided by cunning or flattery,

It might have been averted with one spare battery!