All Woods Must Fail

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by Rebekah

All Woods Must Fail (audio)

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“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.” ROTK

This quote jumped out at me this time around. It’s a reminder that I need, and one that I think the world needs. As I pondered this idea, I came across a song that Frodo sings while the Hobbits are traipsing through the Old Forest. When we are tempted to despair, it is that clearing in the trees, the break in the clouds, that keeps us going. It’s so easy to look around and see the darkness that fills this world, but there is light too. And this Light will overcome the darkness.

The first stanza, in italics and quotation marks, is Tolkien’s own work (Fellowship of the Ring, “The Old Forest”). He cuts off at the world “fail”, which stops him in his tracks. I continued the song with my own verses, which all carry on the same theme and pull ideas from other Tolkien passages.

All Woods Must Fail

“O! Wanderers in the shadowed land
despair not! For though dark they stand,
all woods there be must end at last,
and see the open sun go past:
the setting sun, the rising sun,
the day’s end or the day begun.
For east or west all woods must fail….”
And light shine through the wooded vale
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Sometimes I cannot see beyond
It’s dark ahead, the journey long
But even in the darkest night
The stars are high and shine so bright
For beauty stretches on and on
The Shadow cannot touch the sun
For east or west all woods must fail
And light shine through the wooded vale
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For your King shall come again
You will dwell with him and then
the everlasting songs you’ll sing
Forever always with the King
For he has made the Shadow naught
And triumphed o’er the dark it wrought
For east or west all woods must fail
And light shine through the wooded vale
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So when you wander near or far
Look up to the Evening Star
And if you’re lost among the trees
Remember that beyond the leaves
open sky and open fields
will forever be revealed
For east or west all woods must fail
And light shine through the wooded vale

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