Stories by the Staff – Frodo’s Trial
Today on Stories by the Staff we have a wonderful poem written by Mary Lang, the Features Editor and News Production student.
Frodo’s Trial
There is a way beyond the sea
Where sun and moon both fade
Where the air is more, and clear
And Elvish laughter plays.
Where starry nights are dewy morns
And joy is full of tears
They laughed, and cried, and wept,
he said
But Frodo stood all silent
There is a way, the hobbit thought
A way to find the lost
He looked for it in lands he knew
And dreams he once had dreamt
But dreams are bleached
Are bleached away,
Are vanished from him now.
And the green green grass is white and spare
And the house once merry silent
The autumn comes, and then he finds
That mind once quick is slow,
The hands that held the gleaming Ring
Weighed down by all the world,
The shoulder, hurt, is never healed,
The glass is all so clear;
Clear to see “for those who can”
And Frodo knows it not.
He fears not the silence, but only dreads
The days he sits alone
Alone, alone, while others laugh
Alone, alone, while others love
He suffers and suffers and dreams and long
Long his eyes are full
He longs and long
But he asks what for
And autumn wearies on
He rides and rides
And still rides on
And then remembers more
“Come to me when autumn hails
And find me in the woods”
He harkens and stills and then he hears,
He thinks he hears a bell,
And carriage wheels come soft on leaves
And finally he knows.
The old white man in the white white robe
The Elf on the pale pale horse
Frodo comes and words are passed —
Passed and the Sea is heard
He knows now the time
The day
The hour
He knows the ride
The ship
The shore
Suffer and suffer and dream and long
(Not long now, he sees)
His healing near
He rides once more
Through lands he sees as bleached
Yes, still bleached but now he knows
The time and ship and shore
The path ahead and friends behind
He blesses each and all
The best is last, he kisses curls
He hands away his book
“The pages left
Are not for me — write them as you will.”
Tears do fall and yet no shame
“For weeping is not alway evil.”
He boards the ship, looks back once more
To friends left on the dock
But unlike them he does not weep
When he turns his face ahead.
For he knows the place beyond the Sea
Where sun and moon both fade
Where the air is more, and clear
And Elvish laughter plays.
Where starry nights are dewy morns
And joy is full of tears.