Shakespearian Sonnets - Elves and Trees

[written_leaves]

Shakespearian sonnets adapted for Elrond, Legolas and Haldir, plus Treebeard and his trees.


Elrond Halfelven
(based on Shakespeare's Sonnet XVI)

But wherefore did you manage in mighty way
To war upon that bloody tyrant, Time?
You fortified yourself from all decay
With means more blessed than all Elven rhyme.
Now stand you on the end of happy hours;
Past countless fading gardens, yet unset,
Your virtue and peace bloom like living flowers,
Much truer than all painted counterfeits;
So did the lines of fate your Ring repair'd,
In this, Time's eddy, hidden peaceful vale,
Both filled with inward worth, and outward fair.

You gave away yourself, kept yourself stilled;
And now must sail, drawn by your own ring'd skill.
-

I Shall Remember
(Sonnet CXXIII)

No! Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change;
These monuments carven by newer kings
To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;
They are but remnants of former age's things.
Their dates are brief, and therefore Men admire
What thou dost foist upon them that is 'old,'
But rather seek the ageless, my desire,
Than thinking oft of kings or hidden gold.
Thus Men and Dwarves I both defy,
Not wondering at the present nor the past;
Records crumble and under sod they lie,
Fading to dust despite desire to last.

This do I vow, and this shall ever be,
I will be true, to keep their memory.
-

The Dwarf Breathes Loudly
(Sonnet LXXXIX)

Say that thou didst forget Elves; fearsome fault,
And I will comment upon that offense.
Speak of our lameness, and I straight will halt,
Against thy reasons making pointed defence.
Thou canst not, Dwarf, disgrace me half so ill,
To set your form within our beauteous wood,
As thy'll thyself disgrace; as knowing naught will.
I would acquaintance strangle, and look strange,
Be absent from thy walks; and in my tongue
Thy well-deserved "name" no more shouldst dwell,
Lest I (who breathes softly) should do it wrong,
And happily of your old acquaintance tell.

For thee, against myself I'll vow debate,
That I will ne'er hate him thou dost hate.
-

A Thousand Winters
(Sonnet II)

When a thousand winters have besieged thy bark
And dug deep trenches by thy rooted feet,
Your forest’s green branches, so gaz’d on now,
Will be a tatter’d wood, of small worth held;
Then being ask’d where all their beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of their lusty days,
They will see, within thine own deep sunken eyes,
There dwells long memory and timeless faith.
How more praise deserv’d in thy forest’s keeping
If thou couldst answer – “This fair wood of mine
Shall sum my count, and make known my years –“
Proving trees beauty by overgrowing thine!

They will yet be new-grown when thou are old,
To see their sap warm when thou feel’st it cold.
-

No Longer Mourn
(Sonnet LXXI)

No longer mourn for trees whose boles are fled,
That forest split by the surly sullen axe,
Gave warning to the world an Age was dead,
From this bare world, with barren stumps and stacks,
Nay, if you chop this wood, remember not,
The ones that knew it; for they loved it so,
For they in your history would be forgot,
The splitting of the Wood - a time of woe.
O, if (they say) you plant again a tree,
It stands perhaps, small sapling in the clay,
But not so much as a poor Forest be.
So let them fade, even with the Ents decay:

Lest the wise world should try again to join,
An end of farmland, and of regal coin.