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BALLADS, POEMS AND LAMENTS

To the second 'school' of poetry belongs that of the Elves, the Ents, the Dwarves and the Men. Though being different in many aspects yet they have very much in common. First of all it is a high-flown style abundant in bookish words and expressions. Of all the poems in The Lord of the Rings this characteristic is most rightfully applied to the songs of Rohan. Their ballads - noble and full of dignity - depict the life of the war-like folk in terms similar to those of Anglo-Saxon poetry. They celebrate fearless heroes and mourn the glorious days irretrievably passed.
Where is now the horse and the rider?
Where is the horn that was blowing?
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?
Where is the hand on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing?
Where is the spring and the harvest, and the tall corn growing?
Tolkien has achieved great expressiveness using dactylic foot in the first five lines interspersed with anapaest in the following stanza, repetition, simile and contrast on lexemic level, successfully retaining the word order characteristic of Old English poetry. In the longer poems immitation of OE verse applies to the style as well as to the form; for them absence of any rhyme at all is very typical.

In the same clue and the same highly suggestive manner the following verse is maintained.
Where now are the Dúnedain, Elessar, Elessar?
Why do thy folk wander afar?
Near is the hour when the Lost should come forth,
And the Grey Company ride from the North,
But dark is the path appointed for thee:
The Dead watch the road that leads to the Sea.
Legolas Greenleaf long under tree
In ioy thou hast lived. Beware of the Sea!
If thou hearest the cry of the gull in the shore,
Thy heart shall then rest in the forest no more.
This message of Lady Galadriel is abound in archaic forms and is particularly evocative for those who enioy interpreting predictions.

The form of questions and answers seems rather typical of Tolkien's poetry, since it helps to reveal the state of mind of a person or describe a situation in a more effective and compressed way than any other utterance would. Here is one more example of such a verse. Along with Legolas, Aragorn deliveres the exquisite funeral song for Boromir. In the poem, unusual for its dramatic structure, the winds are personified as bearers of tidings whom the tower watchers ask for news of Boromir. Each stanza of the ten iambic heptameter lines is organized in the following way: the first two lines describe the approaching wind (the West, the South, the North); lines three and four state the question of the watcher ( "What news do you bring to me today? Where now is Boromir the Fair?); lines from five to eight give the wind's reply; and the lines nine and ten state the reaction of the watcher, who represents all Boromir's people. There are numerous cases of alliteration as well as onomatopoeic words ( moans, siging, roaring).

Gandalf, though not a poet himself, repeats messages in the verse form. He occasionally sings songs of other races of Middle-earth. He rather asks questions than explains; to understand his enigmas one is to possess great knowledge of long-forgotten tales and scripts belonging to the Elder Days of Arda. Often he murmurs to himself brief snathces of rhyme in many tongues. These are Rhymes of Lore, which he chants softly riding with Pippin to Minas Tirith:
Tall ships and tall kings
Three times three
What brought they from the foundered land
Over the flowing Sea?
Seven stars and seven stones
And one white tree.
Reservations, hidden hints, implications and metaphors are typical of Gandalf's style. Here Tolkien used run-on-line, alliteration (tall, times, three; sea, seven, stars, stones; one white), spondee to slow down the tempo and intensify the effect produced by the stanza.

We have already mentioned rare exceptions of hobbits' verses. They rather seldom appear in the book and concern subjects unusual for this folk. Thus Bilbo's verse about Aragorn which he recites at the council of Elrond telescopes many important facts about this man: his wanderings, his age, his coming from the shadow, his broken sword and his eventual coronation.
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows will spring;
Renewed shall be blade that is broken:
The crownless again shall be king.
An allusion used here ('Not all gold that glitters') as well as grammatical parallelism in the two amphibrachic stanzas create the atmosphere of mystery and ancient invocation which is supposed to be solved in its due time.

Shadows have darkened Middle-earth. To overcome the darkness and fear one should abandon any hope to stay alive struggling against the Enemy. Many roads lead to glory, but all through despair and uncertainty, and one of them is most horrible. When speaking about it or just mentioning it old warriors turn pale and break off. None has ever come back from this road, since the way is too dreadful to tread. Long ago there had been foretold that the heir of Isildur would pass it on his way to the Sea.
Over the land there lies a long shadow,
Westward reaching wings of darkness.
The Tower trembles; to the tombs of Kings
doom approaches. The Dead awaken:
for the hour is come for the oathbreakers;
at the Stone of Erech they shall stand again
and hear a horn in the hills ringing.
Whose shall be horn? Who shall call them
from grey twilight, the forgotten people?
The heir of him to whom the oath they swore.
From the North shall he come, need shall drive him:
he shall pass the Door to the Paths of the Dead.
Plenty of [t],[d] and [h] sounds, frequent use of alliteration, stylistic invertion, the modal verb shall that here means 'threat' and the contents itself produce a gloomy feeling of uneasiness and warning. There can be found such words as 'doom','dead ', 'shadow', 'darkness, which are associated with the Enemy and his dark power. Absence of rhyme and irregular meter make the verse sound like a Medieval prophecy or a lamentation.

Speaking about the Medieval poetic tradition we can not but mention the genre of ballad, which is widely represented in The Lord of the Rings. Most of them consist of an immense number of stanzas, thus they can only by partially represented here. Naturally the most beautiful tunes belong to the Elvish poets. Their poems are the most consistently musical. Because the Elven-folk enjoy hearing songs and because they share an important role in the trilogy, it is not surprising that Tolkien has included so many examples of their tunes, such as an old ballad of Beren and Luthien. The nine stanzas of eght iambic tetrameter lines have a complicated rhyme scheme (abacbabc). The poetic narration begins with a description of the summer - an ideal setting of an elvish maiden - when the leaves were long, the grass was green, and Tinuviel was singing and dancing under the stars 'to music of a pipe unseen'. Beren arrived 'from the mountains cold', he had wandered lost 'alone and sorrowing' until he saw Luthien. He was enchanted but could not reach her in time, for she 'lightly fled on dancing feet and left him lonely'. As winter passed, Beren saw her again and called her by her elvish name Tinuviel. 'A spell his voice laid on her' and the immortal maid fell in love with a mortal man, and the two lovers experienced many sorrows and perils. The elven-fair Tinuviel chose mortality forsaking her kin so that she could rejoin Beren after his death. Though a translation of an elvish mode, the poem abounds in musical effects. There are twenty cases of alliteration, two of them are triple one. Particularly effective sound such word combinations as 'elven river rolled','woven woods of Elvenhome' and 'immortal maiden elven-wise'.

Regardless of the singer or teller, the Elvish poems always convey feelings and emotions of remoteness both from the Primary World of the reader and from the rest of the Secondary World of Tolkien's creation. Their songs often celebrate persons or places of long ago when Middle-earth differed from its state at the time of he Quest. Such are the ballads of an elven-maid Nimrodel or The Fall of Gil-Galad, the favourite themes of which are battles against the Enemy, romantic love, and the distant realm beyond the Western Seas; reccuring images are starlight, brightness, blooming trees and white ships.

The very first song that the hobbits hear after their departure from the Shire is an ancient homage to Varda, Queen of the Valar, the maker of the stars, whom the Elves call Elbereth. Upon her name they call out of the shadows of Middle-earth. The four ballad stanzas alternate between abab and aabb rhyme schemes. She is addressed as Light and Lady clear.
Snow-white! Snow-white! O Lady clear!
O Queen beyond the Western Seas !
O Light to us that wander there
Amid the world of woven treesl
Gilthoniel! O Elbereth!
Clear are thy eyes and bright is breath,
Snow-white! Snow-white! We sing to thee
In a far land beyond the Sea!
O Stars that in the sunless Year
With shining hand by thee were sown,
In windy fields now bright and clear
We see your silver blossom blown!
O Elbereth Gilthoniel!
We still remember, we who dwell
In this far land beneath the trees,
Thy starlight on the Western Seas.
The whitenes, brightness and clarity associated both with Elbereth and the Stars receive repeated emphasis. Iambic tetrameter and couplet rhymes generally predominate in Elvish poems, though sometimes cross rhymes may appear. Here we find several cases of alliteration - the technique Tolkien frequently employs in elvish tunes - both assonance (world, woven) and consonance (bright, breath; blossom blown; hand by her) producing the effect of euphony. Particularly interesting may seem those songs which Tolkien leaves untranslated so that we could enjoy genuine Elvish. As far as we can judge this stanza is also devoted to Varda.
A Elbereth Gilthoniel,
silivren penna miriel
o menel aglar elenath!
Na-charred palan-diriel
o galadhremmin ennorath,
Fanuilos, le linnathon
nef aer, si nef aeronl
The genre of ballad is rather typical not only of the elven-folk or the Men, but also of the Naugrim. Gimly, the Dwarf, has only one poem to himself in the whole trilogy. He chants it in a deep voice when the Ring company gets into dark depths of Moria. The iambic tetrameter couplets recount their skill in making things and their delight in the beauty of what they had made. Listening to the song Sam feels 'the darkness grew heavier, though he should like to learn it'.[2]

It is a very high-flown and solemn song, sustained in a reticent and overt tone. In a compressed way it tells the story of Khâzad-dûm: the first king, his awakening by the waters of Mirrormere, the beauty of his kingdom and it's fall. The poem is practically endless and it's end is mostly forgotten, as it often happens to ancient tunes. Thus here we represent only three stanzas.
The world was young, the mountains green,
No stain yet on the Moon was seen,
No words were laid on stream or stone
When Durin woke and walked alone.
He named the nameless hills and dells;
He drank from yet untasted wells;
He stooped and looked in Mirrormere,
And saw a crown of stars appear,
As gems upon a silver thread,
Above the shadow of his head.
A king he was on carven throne
In many-pillared halls of stone
With golden roof and silver floor,
And runes of power on his door.
The light of sun and star and moon
In shining lamps of crystal hewn
Undimmed by cloud or shade of night
There shone for ever fair and bright.
The world is grey, the mountain old,
The forge's fire is ashen-cold;
The harp is wrung, no hammer falls:
The darkness dwells in Durin's halls;
The shadow lies upon his tomb
In Moria, in Khâzad-dûm.
But still the sunken stars appear
In dark and windless Mirrormere;
There lies his crown in water deep,
Till Durin wakes again from sleep.
Naturally, the songs of the Dwarves lack the vitality of those of the Elves; they are less musical and even gloomy sometimes due to their imagery. Here Tolkien has successfully used a frame construction based upon contrast on lexemic level, numerous repetitions (asyndeton in this case) to intensify the impression of the beauty lost which is done much more effectively than a piece of prose might do.

Following the Medieval tradition, Tolkien included several laments in The Lord if the Ring. With the coming of a new age ancient realms of the Elves and of the Ents begin fading away. All the beauties and the magic of Fangorn and Lothlorien are going to be lost forever thus remaining only in song and verse. Several of them belong to the Ents, whose poetic tradition has much on common with that of the Elves. Long lines and frequent repetitions as well as inner rhymes and polysyllabic words characterize their poetry. Often a teller has to curtail his poem or resort to a non-Entish version if he wants to finish it. Entish tunes sound more like thoughts aloud than verses. The first part of the following well structurized poem contains long anapaestic lines about each season's travels, interspersed with short iambic lines conveying Treebeard's former delight. The last six lines gradually become shorter, relating his present unhappiness and suggesting the limiting of his wanderings.
In the willow-meads of Tassarinan I walked in the Spring.
Ah! the sight and the smell of the spring in Nan-tasarion!
And I saw that was good.
I wandered in Summer in the elm-woods of Ossiriand.
Ah! the light and the music in the summer by the Seven Rivers of Ossir!
And I thought that was the best.
To the beeches of Neldoreth I came in Autumn.
Ah! the gold and the red and the singing leaves in the autumn in Taur-na-Neldor!
It was more than my desire.
To the pine-trees upon the highland of Dorthonion I climbed in the Winter.
Ah ! the wind and the whiteness and the black branches of winter upon Orod-na-Thon!
My voice went up and sang in the sky.
And now all those lands lie under the wave,
And I walk in Ambarona, in Tauremorna, in Aldalome,
In my own land, in the country of Fangorn,
Where the roots are long,
And the years lie thicker than the leaves
In Tauremornalome.
Most of the Entish songs have a rhythmically organized form rather than rhyming scheme. They are abundant in metaphors and epithets which produce the effect of visual perception. The poems of this folk are successfully adopted to their nature and speech, though now and again the Ents 'hum' Elvish songs instead of their own tunes for they would have been too long if sung in Entish.

The song of the Ent and the Ent-wife has a dramatic structure and all indications of the Entish poetry, such as rather prolonged lines, numerous repetitions and alliteration, parallel constructions. Each stanza of four iambic heptameter lines is divided as following: the first three lines describe the season and the delights associeted with it; the last line contains the Ent's call to the Ent-wife, his reqest to come back to him and to say that his land is fair; she replies - in the last line of her stanza - that she won't come because her land is best. But when 'the winter wild' comes to their realms, and 'starless night devours the sunless day', together they will take 'the road beneath the bitter rain 'and find the way into the West.
A young Ent named Bregalad softly and sadly chants a tune that seemed to the hobbits to lament in many tongues the fall of the rowan trees that he had loved and cherished so much. Now they do not quiver and do not hear or answer: they are lying dead. The eight iambic heptameter lines rhyme abbccb. All but the first and the last contain words linked by internal rhyme and assonance. In lines two and seven we find examples of contrast on lexemic level.
O Orofarne, Lassemista, Carnemirie!
O rowan fair, upon your hair how white the blossom lay!
O rowan mine, I saw you shine upon a summer's day
Your rind so bright, you leaves so light, your voice so cool and soft:
Upon your head how golden-red the crown you bore aloft!
O rowan dead, upon your head your hair is dry and grey;
Your crown is spilled, your voice is stilled for ever and the day.
O Orofarne, Lassemista, Carnemirie!
The whole verse is based upon parallelism and framing, used here to emphasize a bitter feeling of the diminished splendour of the ancient forest, the realm of the Ents.

The same feeling of loss and grief dominates the Elvish tunes in which they bemoan the approach of winter both as a season and the decline of their realm. The Lord of the Rings develops a sense of dissipation of the elven-wisdom and beauty, those of Lothlorien.
In Dwimorden, in Lorien
Seldom have walked the feet of Men,
Few mortal eyes have seen the light
That lies there ever, long and bright.

Galadriel! Galadriel!
Clear is the water of your well;
White is the star in your white hand,
Unmarred, unstained is leaf and land
In Dwimorden, in Lorien
More fair than the thoughts of Men.
In this charming piece of poetry chanted by Gandalf we find the same symbols as mentioned above: stars and brightness, which are usually associated with Elbereth. A number of epithets, sound interchange and alliteration contribute to the impression of the verse which is the most musical and lyrical ever recited by the wizard.

In Elvish poems Tolkien seems to toy with a combination of sound and sense, melodical modulations that produce nearly visible effects. The Elves compose their tunes quite easily and mostly spontaneously, fitting them for the occasion. Sad and sweet is the sonnet of the Elven Lady. Its fourteen lines of iambic heptameter are organized as the following: the first eight lines relate the memories of the Old Days of Arda when the elven-folk was young and yet not weary of this world; lines from nine to twelve lament the fading splendour of Lorien; the last two lines reveal the state of mind of the singer. Although Galadriel longs to be on the far shore, she has almost despaired of reaching it.
I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold there grew.
Of wind I sang, a wind there came and in the branches blew.
Beyond the sun, beyond the Moon, the foam was on the Sea,
And by the strand of Ilmarin there grew a golden Tree.

Beneath the stars of Elven-eve in Eldamar it shone,
In Eldamar beside the walls of Elven Tirion.
There long the golden leaves have grown upon the branching years,
While here beyond the Sundering Seas now fall the Elven-tears.

O Lorien! The winter comes, the bare and leafless Day.
The leaves are falling in the stream, the River flows away.
O Lorien! Too long I have dwelt upon this Hither Shore
And in a fading crown have twined the golden elanor.
But if of ships I now should sing, what ship would come to me,
What ship would bear me ever back across so wild a Sea?
There are many stylistic devices used in this piece of poetry such as stylistic inversion, chain repetitions, vowel gradation, frequent alliteration, assonance and consonance. Plenty of [l], [g] and [b] sounds make the verse more musical and provide it with lyrical mood.

Sea is another important symbol for the trilogy. It is the only element which the Enemy had failed to marr; from the Sea came the Númenoreans and from beyond it had come the Valar summoned by Earendil. With the Sea dreams and hopes of the Eldar are connected, thus getting weary of the world they set sail to the uttermost West, seeking the Blessed Realm of Valinor where their kin still dwell.
To the Sea, to Sea! The white gulls are crying,
The wind is blowing, and the white foam is flying.
West, West away, the round sun is falling.
Grey ship, grey ship, do you hear them calling
The voices of my people that have gone before me?
I will leave, I will leave the woods that bore me;
For our days are ending and our years are faiding.
I will pass the wide waters lonely sailing.
Long are the waves on the Last Shore falling,
Sweet are the voices in the Lost Isles calling,
In Eressea, in Elvenhome that no man can discover,
Where the leaves fall not: land of my people forever!
The twelve lines of the poem, rhymed in couplets, express Legolas's joy in going home to the people of his kin, though his departure seems a little bit too sad. As Lady Galadriel had once foretold, his heart can rest in the the woods no more. The last two lines of this rather irregularly metered verse are longer and slower in tempo than the others, appropriately suggesting the gradual falling of the days of the Eldar.

The Elves are fading towards their eventual extinction at the End of the Story. Their poetry reveals the attempt to cling to their past might and splendour and glorify the light which they have brought to other races of Middle-earth.
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Appendix
Tolkien Lord of the Rings :Style, Language and Poetry is very, very, very happy to be hosted by Ixwebhosting