Legolas - 10 Years On


Yesterday, I went to see The Hobbit.  When I got home, I dug out all my old Tolkien fan fictions and re-read them, something I haven't done for years.  In among them was the very first - actually a fan poem - simply entitled Legolas and dated December 2002.  At the time I thought it was the first and last, a one-off expression of my feelings after seeing The Two Towers.  Little did I know then that it was in fact the spark that re-kindled my imaginative gift, and set me on my own "unexpected journey" through fan fiction and short story, to the point I am now, with my first novel Silver Hands due for release in April 2013.  So it seems only right to print the poem again, ten years on.  Thank you, Legolas.  I still love you.

Legolas

Under leaf and under tree,
Under moon and under star, 
Long you walked, before the sea
Bore you to the realm afar.

Too fair for man, too stern for maid,
As all that race whose days are long.
Sure of bow and keen of blade,
Clear of vision and of song.

For ever young in face, and in
The joy of life by branch and stream,
With starlit eyes of all your kin,
Reflecting centuries of dream.

Alas, I fade, I die, I age,
Hourly the sand runs from the glass.
Your beauty still runs unassuaged 
Over fern and over grass.

O Greenleaf, Thranduil's son,
Would that those eyes had turned on me
And timeless, ageless, we could run
Beneath the stars, beyond the sea.

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