Sonnet for the Trees
Based on Shakespeare’s Sonnet LXXI
No longer mourn for trees whose boles are fled,
That forest split by the surly sullen axe,
Gave warning to the world an Age was dead,
From this bare world, with barren stumps and stacks,
Nay, if you chop this wood, remember not,
The ones that knew it; for they loved it so,
For they in your history would be forgot,
The splitting of the Wood - a time of woe.
O, if (they say) you plant again a tree,
It stands perhaps, small sapling in the clay,
But not so much as a poor Forest be.
So let them fade, even with the Ents decay:
Lest the wise world should try again to join,
An end of farmland, and of regal coin.
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Sonnet for Bill the Pony
(based on Shakespeare's Sonnet XVIII)
Or, "O Pony-Bill, O Pony-Bill,
Wherefore art thou, O Pony-Bill?"
Shall I compare thee to a sleek, tall Bay?
Thou art more shaggy and more intemperate:
Rough winds do make your tangled tail to sway,
And the travelers' pile on you too great a weight.
Sometimes your sight within your eyes does fine,
But often is your equine forelock untrimm'd;
In every path and river you sometimes decline,
By chance, or stubborn change in course, unswimm'd;
But thy direction homeward shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that stable thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in between the stable walls thou growest;
So long as you can breathe and eat your feed,
So long you will live, if they provide what you need.
Two Sonnets for Bilbo
Hidden Venture
Based on Shakespeare's Sonnet CLIII
Bilbo lay by his book, and fell asleep:
A nephew, his, this advantage finds,
And safe-keeping notes did quickly steep
In the curious-fountain of his mind;
Which borrow'd from his Uncle, so like,
An endlessly lively seeking to endure.
He read a seething tale, which yet no dyke
Against strange 'venturing will find a cure,
But 'neath old Bilbo's eye, found dreams new-fire'd.
The lad, he notes slight movement of the cheek;
Now, sly withal, the help of maps desir'd,
He thither hides his surreptitious peek -
But found no cure: the adventure's help lies
Where Bilbo found new fire - in Frodo's eyes.
Bilbo and Thorin
Based on Shakespeare's Sonnnet CXX
You who were once betrayed - befriend me now;
For here that anger which I then did feel,
(That stone! I was thus trangression bow'd,
Unless my nerves were brass and hammer'd steel!),
For if you were by my unkindness shaken,
And I, as tyrant, had no leisure taken
To weigh how once you suffer'd in your crime -
O that our night of woe might have remember'd
That deepest sense! So hard true sorrow hits,
And soon to you, as you to me, then tender'd,
The humble salve which wounded bosom fit:
That your forgiveness now becomes a fee:
Mine ransoms yours, and yours ransoms me.
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For Boromir and the Ring
Based on William Shakespeare’s Sonnet LXI
Is it thy will thy image should keep open
My heavy eyelids to the weary night?
Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,
While shadows of victory so mock my fight?
Is it thy spirit that thou send’st from thee
From the halfling’s heart, into my deeds to pry;
To find out shames and desperate hours in me,
The scope and tenor of my jealousy?
O no! thy draw, though much, is not so great;
It is my hope that keeps mine eye awake;
Mine own true desire that doth my rest defeat,
To play the watchman ever for thy sake:
For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wait elsewhere,
Close to my hand, with others all-too-near.
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Sonnet for Denethor
(based on Shakespeare's Sonnet X )
For shame! Deny that thou bear'st love to any,
Who for thyself are death-loyal, unhesitant.
Grant if thou wilt thou art belov'd of many,
But that thou none lov'st is most evident;
For thou are so possess'd with grieving hate,
That 'gainst thyself thou stick'st not to conspire,
Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate,
Which to defend should be thy chief desire.
O change thy thought, regaining thy mind!
Shall grief and pride be held, not gentle love?
Be, as his presence is, gracious and kind,
Or, to Gondor at least, wise-hearted prove;
Make thee another choice; remember faith,
That justice still may live, thy grief replace.
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Sonnet for Elrond Halfelven
(Based on Shakespeare's Sonnet XVI)
But wherefore did you manage in mighty way
To war upon that bloody tyrant, Time?
You fortified yourself from all decay
With means more blessed than all Elven rhyme.
Now stand you on the end of happy hours;
Past countless fading gardens, yet unset,
Your virtue and peace bloom like living flowers,
Much truer than all painted counterfeits;
So did the lines of fate your Ring repair'd,
In this, Time's eddy, hidden peaceful vale,
Both filled with inward worth, and outward fair.
You gave away yourself, kept yourself stilled;
And now must sail, drawn by your own ring'd skill.
A Sonnet for Treebeard
Based on Shakespeare’s sonnet II
When a thousand winters have besieged thy bark
And dug deep trenches by thy rooted feet,
Your forest’s green branches, so gaz’d on now,
Will be a tatter’d wood, of small worth held;
Then being ask’d where all their beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of their lusty days,
They will see, within thine own deep sunken eyes,
There dwells long memory and timeless faith.
How more praise deserv’d in thy forest’s keeping
If thou couldst answer – “This fair wood of mine
Shall sum my count, and make known my years –“
Proving trees beauty by overgrowing thine!
They will yet be new-grown when thou are old,
To see their sap warm when thou feel’st it cold.
A Sonnet for Eomer
(based on Shakespeare's Sonnet XLVIII )
How careful was I when I took my way
Each oath under truest sword to thrust,
That, by my guard, it might unbroken stay
From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust!
But thou, for whom my oath's allegiance are,
Most worthy Lordship, now my greatest grief,
Thou, best of dearest, and mine greatest care
Art left helpless prey to this vulgar thief.
Thee have I not lock'd up in any chest,
Save where thou are not, though I feel thou art,
Within the armored closure of my breast.
From Meduseld thou hast commanded I depart;
But even thence thou would be stolen I fear,
For lies prove thievish for a prize so dear.
A Sonnet for Faramir
(based on Shakespeare's Sonnet LXXXVII )
Farewell! thou are too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou know'st thy estimate:
The testing of my worth gave thee releasing;
Your bonds are freed, to paths determinate.
For how could I hold thee to cause thy failing?
To keep that treasure, where is my deserving?
The use of this fair gift will bring but wailing;
And so my warning heart away is swerving.
Thyself thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing,
To this, to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking;
So thy great gift, despite its power growing,
Comes home again, midst better judgement making.
Thus release it, which in dreams doth flatter,
T'would tempt a king, but, waking, an evil matter.
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Three Sonnets for Frodo:
Light Within These Hands
(based on Shakepeare's Sonnet V)
These hands that with gentleness did frame
Thy lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,
Now must play the tyrant to the very same,
To bear that Unfair, which in evil doth excel;
Lest never-resting time lead autumn on
To hideous winter, and confound us there;
Sap check'd with frost, and flourish'd leaves quite gone.
Beauty o'ersnow'd, and bareness everywhere:
Then, were not starlight's distillation left,
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass...
By beauty's effect, you were beauty bereft,
Not it, nor no remembrance what it was.
As a lily crushed, though it with winter meet,
Lifts up once more; thy substance still lives sweet.
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I Am Seen
(based on Shakespeare's Sonnet VII)
Lo, in the East when the prideful light
Lifts up its burning head, as burning Eye
Seeking homage to his new-appearing sight,
Serving darkness with his sacred majesty.
Thy having climb'd the steep-up ashen hill,
Resembling strong youth in thy middle age,
Tho' mortal looks ador'd his treasure still,
Attending on its gold and black triage;
But when from high crevasse, with weary care,
Like feeble age, thou reeleth from the fire,
The Eye, 'fore seeking West, now alerted tears
From its low tract, and looks another way:
So thou, thyself claiming and soon claim'd,
Would unlook'd on diest, but for another's pain.
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Expended
(based on Shakespeare's Sonnet CXXIX)
My spirit expended in a waste of ash,
It strives 'gainst death; yet is ground to dust,
This treasure: murderous, bloody, with deadly past,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel , not to trust;
Fair to my hand, but despised straight;
Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,
Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait,
On purpose laid to make the taker mad:
Mad in pursuit, and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, - and prov'd, a very woe;
Before, a joy propose'd; behind, a dream:
All this my soul well knows; yet I cannot tell
How to shun this heaven that leads toward this hell.
