"A real taste for fairy-stories was wakened by philology on the threshold of manhood, and quickened to full life by war."

--JRR Tolkien, Tree and Leaf (1964), 'On Fairy-Stories'

The poems listed here are from various writings of Tolkien.  Although the majority can be found in The Hobbit or LotR, some come from The Tolkien Reader.  Of course, I do plan on adding more in the future.   Note that not all the poems in Tolkien's writings have names.  I have given names to those that were without so as to make a distinction of it.

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The Mounds of Mundburg


We heard of the horns in the hills ringin,
the swords shining in the South-kingdom.
Steeds went striding to the Stoningland
as wind in the morning. War was kindled.
There Theoden fell, Thengling mighty,
to his golden halls and green pastures
in the Northern fields never returning,
high lord of the host. Harding and Guthlaf,
Dunhere and Deorwine, doughty Grimbold,
Herefara and Herubrand, Horn and Fastred,
fought and fell there in a far country:
in the Mounds of Mundburg under mould they lie
with their league-fellows, lords of Gondor.
Neither Hirluin the Fair to the hills by the sea,
nor Forlong the old to the flowering vales
ever, to Arnach, to his own country
returned in triumph; nor the tall bowmen,
Derufin and Duilin, to their dark waters,
meres of Morthond under mountain-shadows.
Death in the morning and at day's ending
lords took and lowly. Long now they sleep
under grass in Gondor by the Great River.
Grey now as tears, gleaming silver,
red then it rolled, roaring water:
foam dyed with blood flamed at sunset;
as beacons mountains burned at evening;
red fell the dew in Rammas Echor.


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