Plague and Pestilence

The Gifting

The Shire-light is quenched and I am blind.
No path lies clear to guide my vagrant sight
To candled room of Once for me to find,
To lead tomorrow out of ashen Night.

The Shire-light has gone and I am blind
To any Road that Middle-Earth can mend;
The bridge to home was shivered in the End,
                        Like Khazad-dûm

A dusk is on my soul and all is naught,
As when we crept to stay the fatal breath
Come with the world’s new breaking heaven wrought,
And fled for one last moment withering Death.

The dusk fell on my soul and turned to naught
The golden hour that shone upon my Shire;
It lingered there, uncertain, by the Fire
                        And was consumed.

Thus gone from me was that which was most fair,
That, step by step, unknowing, I had sold;
And, breath by labored breath, I, unaware,
Had spent my shining coin for darker gold.

Now gone from me is that which is most fair,
And all I might have seen is lost to me,
Save for the starlight on the Sundering Sea
                        That westward gleams.

But Frodo-lad will come with sight undimmed
As mine that saw the Shire in brighter days,
And all I might have seen is left to him,
To light his Road amongst the winding ways.

Sweet Frodo-lad will come with light undimmed,
Youth-eager, chasing paths of light reborn,
For all the Shire he sees will be of morn
                        And golden dreams.