I Sit and Think

While trying to think of a poem to write about for my next blog, I immediately had the realization that I have not made a single mention of my favorite author: JRR Tolkien. While I am obviously a huge fan of The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, The Simillarion, and all things Middle-Earth related, I wanted to explore a different side of Tolkien that not too many people seem to appreciate, which is that of his poetry. To begin the exploration, I chose “I Sit and Think” by Tolkien, because I saw it as a powerful and personal reflection that is equally moving and mesmerizing because of its somber perspective of both the life that has been lived, and the future of the world to come. The poem opens by creating a beautiful backdrop to the narrator sitting there; something that immediately evokes the ornate sceneries and landscapes that Tolkien created across the rolling pastures of the Shire and the blinding white capped Misty Mountains. But alongside the harmonious images lavishly painted across the words there is also a reflection of how much things have changed over the course of a lifetime, as he recalls “meadow-flowers and butterflies in summers that have been/of yellow leaves and gossamer in autumns that there were”. However wonderful the sights may have been to the narrator, he now realizes that they are simply just a memory of a time that has long passed, one where the beauty of the past can never equate to what he sees now. Here Tolkien himself can easily be inserted as the narrator, being one whose life spanned across nearly three quarters of the twentieth century, where several technological changes occurred that began to replace the beauty of the natural world with that of industry and advancement. It is both a reflective and harrowing thought to think of how much the world has changed before one’s own eyes, and even scarier to think of what will become of the world when one’s own chapter draws to a close. Such are the narrator’s thoughts when he pictures, “a spring that I shall [n]ever see”. Life will go on without us, however much we may not wish it to, but such is the way of the world, and so it shall continue. An even greater thought is of how even when we are gone, the people that we know will still carry on with their lives and continue to experience all that this world has to offer. Tolkien touched on thought within his other writing in The Return of the King, when Frodo prepares to leave for the Grey Havens and tells Samwise how his, “part of the Story goes on” (1006). In the same way, Tolkien muses again “of people long ago/ and people who will see a world that I shall never know”, a sad truth that all must come to terms with after the twilight of life has passed over. But until the final moment comes when all of this must finally come true, the narrator returns to his peaceful reflections that he reveled in earlier, all the while “listen[ing] for returning feet and voices at the door”. Personally, I think that those feet and voices are those of either children or grandchildren who come to visit him, spending as much time with the narrator as they can before his inevitable parting. Ultimately, I think the greatest message behind this poem is to enjoy the fleeting moments of life, and to not dread the unknown of the future, but revel in your chance to have a chapter of life that was well worth living.

 

I Sit And Think

I sit beside the fire and think of all that I have seen,
of meadow-flowers and butterflies in summers that have been;
Of yellow leaves and gossamer in autumns that there were,
with morning mist and silver sun and wind upon my hair.
I sit beside the fire and think of how the world will be
when winter comes without a spring that I shall ever see.

For still there are so many things that I have never seen:
in every wood in every spring there is a different green.
I sit beside the fire and think of people long ago,
and people who will see a world that I shall never know.
But all the while I sit and think of times there were before,
I listen for returning feet and voices at the door.

© J R R Tolkien. All rights reserved