Winter
A poem spoken by Bilbo Baggins to Frodo in Rivendell. The first four lines are Tolkien's own.
When winter first begins to bite
and stones crack in the frosty night,
when pools are black and trees are bare,
'tis evil in the wild to fare.
.
When bitter howls the wind, unseen,
its biting teeth so sharp and keen,
through naked branches echoing fey,
it steals my weary breath away.
.
Before me, twisting shadows lie –
above, a dark and moonless sky.
The cold eats down into my bone
and binds the water still as stone.
.
Still 'round the corner I may find
a juniper, with silver twined,
or spruces dressed in glitter pale,
and rivers clad in shining mail.
.
Old pines keep watch o'er the dell –
dark sentinels, with voices fell,
their trunks shine brightly in the night
damascened with arabesques of white.
.
I track the owl's twilight hoot
'neath bough, over stone and twisted root,
stealing away with silent tread,
leaving behind my untucked bed.
.
Something alluring, sweet and queer,
rises like mist over the mere –
over the hills, from far away,
where harps of Elvenfolk yet play.
.
That land erstwhile I too had known,
when on the path of dreams would roam
through sunlit med and winding lane
that now I cannot find again.
.
Now lost in shadows is that realm.
The path that under oak and elm
once ran by weeds is overgrown,
and in the dark I stand alone.
.
I hear the whispering of the trees,
soft voices singing in the breeze
as dawn-light stirs over the brake
and bids the ice-bound world awake.
.
Bare are the trees in woodland drear,
yet I would fain meet Winter here –
through countless grief, joy too had been,
and tears help keep its memory green.
.
And when to home I turn at last,
there sweet the smell of my repast:
of marjoram and caraway
to chase the bitter cold away.