written_leaves | Shakespearian Sonnets

Shakespeare is especially well-suited the adventure and trials that these two faced.
Frodo:

Light Within These Hands
(based on Shakespeare's Sonnet V)

These hands that with gentleness did frame
Thy lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,
Now must play the tyrant to the very same,
To bear that Unfair, which in evil doth excel;
Lest never-resting time lead autumn on
To hideous winter, and confound us there;
Sap check'd with frost, and flourish'd leaves quite gone.
Beauty o'ersnow'd, and bareness everywhere:
Then, were not starlight's distillation left,
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass...
By beauty's effect, you were beauty bereft,
Not it, nor no remembrance what it was.

As a lily crushed, though it with winter meet,
Lifts up once more; thy substance still lives sweet.
-

I am Seen
(based on Shakespeare's Sonnet VII)

Lo, in the East when the prideful light
Lifts up its burning head, as burning Eye
Seeking homage to his new-appearing sight,
Serving darkness with his sacred majesty.
Thy having climb'd the steep-up ashen hill,
Resembling strong youth in thy middle age,
Tho' mortal looks ador'd his treasure still,
Attending on its gold and black triage;
But when from high crevasse, with weary care,
Like feeble age, thou reeleth from the fire,
The Eye, 'fore seeking West, now alerted tears
From its low tract, and looks another way:

So thou, thyself claiming and soon claim'd,
Would unlook'd on diest, but for another's pain.
-

Expended
(based on Shakespeare's Sonnet CXXIX)

My spirit expended in a waste of ash,
It strives 'gainst death; yet is ground to dust,
This treasure: murderous, bloody, with deadly past,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel , not to trust;
Fair to my hand, but despised straight;
Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,
Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait,
On purpose laid to make the taker mad:
Mad in pursuit, and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, - and prov'd, a very woe;
Before, a joy propose'd; behind, a dream:

All this my soul well knows; yet I cannot tell
How to shun this heaven that leads toward this hell.

Sam:

I'll Serve Thee
(based on Shakespeare's Sonnet XXVI)

Master of my love, to whom in vassalage
They merit hath my duty strongly knit,
To thee I give this faithful embassage,
To witness duty, and to use my wit.
Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine
May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it;
But that I hope some good favour of thine
In thy soul’s thought, in wisdom, will bestow it:
Till that Elven star that guides by moving,
Points on me graciously with fair aspect,
And puts new apparel on my tatter’s loving,
To show me worthy of they sweet respect:

Then may I dare to boast how I did serve thee,
Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me.
-

These Last Pages
(based on Shakespeare's Sonnet CVIII)

What’s in the heart that ink may character,
Which hath not figure’d to thee my true spirit?
What’s new to speak, what new to register,
That may express my love or thine dear merit?
Nothing, sweet master; but yet, like prayers divine,
I must each day say o’er the very same;
Counting no old tale old, for mine art thine.
Even as when first I beheld thy fair hand
Encased in light of star, recede to distant shore.
Weigh not the dust and injury of age,
Nor give to necessary wrinkles place,
But make antiquity for aye this written page;

Finding the first spark of love there bred,
Where time and outward form would show it dead.