Poetry of the Week: The Road Goes Ever On

The first epic of my childhood, following a clever, trickster hero through a long and winding path to danger and back again, was the Hobbit, not the Odyssey. And in addition to writing the two most well known epics of the modern age and inventing languages for fun, J. R. R. Tolkien, like many brilliant people in love with language, wrote poetry.  It's perhaps not surprising that much of it suits the wandering paths and uncertain future that named this blog. To quote one hobbit quoting another: "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door[...] You step onto the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to."

What's particularly fascinating, and what I've never spent enough time on, is tracing the refrains of his songs throughout his work and notes, as they shift and change to suit the scene. "The Road Goes Ever On" is a song written by Bilbo, rewritten by him as the occasion suits, and remembered (and again modified) by Frodo as he begins his own journey. Other poems and refrains shift similarly, and it feels similar to examining different drafts. Where other poets shift their words back and forth in an attempt to settle on a single "finished" version, however, folding the poems into the lifeblood of his worlds and stories means that all the different versions and their different meanings are equally complete and true.

But you came here for poetry:

(At Bilbo's return to the Shire)
Roads go ever ever on,
    Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
    By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
    And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
    And under mountains in the moon.

Roads go ever ever on
    Under cloud and under star,
Yet feet that wandering have gone
    Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
    And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
    And trees and hills they long have known.

(Bilbo's departure at the beginning of The Fellowship)
The Road goes ever on and on
    Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
    And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
    Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
    And whither then? I cannot say.

(Frodo's own departure from the Shire)
The Road goes ever on and on
    Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
    And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with weary feet,
    Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
    And whither then? I cannot say.

(Bilbo, cozy by the fire, at Rivendell toward the end of Return of the King)
The Road goes ever on and on 
    Out from the door where it began. 
Now far ahead the Road has gone, 
    Let others follow it who can! 
Let them a journey new begin, 
    But I at last with weary feet 
Will turn towards the lighted inn, 
    My evening-rest and sleep to meet.


And it's past time for me to turn in as well, though only for the night. I hope your days go well, and your journeys are rewarding if not always easy. 

"Home is behind, the world ahead, and there are many paths to tread"