Before buckling down to the final editing of Ultimate Wizard in preparation for its release this fall, I’ve been rereading The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings hoping that it will inspire and clear my mind. It’s been a couple of decades since I first read them and it’s surprising what one doesn’t remember. In them I found two poems/songs that I really like.
The first is from the Fellowship of the Ring and performs a wonderful foreshadowing of the whole story;
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 shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
The second is for anyone with a sense of adventure;
Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains of the moon.Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star,
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
And trees and hills they long have known.
I have a number of books first read eons ago that I will reread in the coming years.
Alex Binkley 