Forgotten Ground Regained
Hymn to Earendil
All hail Eärendil · for Elf-folk and Mortal-kindsent once to intercede, seeking for grace,help against hell-powers, from the holy Valar,Lords of the West. Launched from Middle-Earthinto darkness and dread, driven by storm,till you attained to Tirion, told them your errandfrom the people oppressed. ‧ With their prayers you were freighted,their tears and their need, in that time of evil.Now, a messenger once more, to Men and Elven-kin,you heralded a new hope. On high in the star-regionthe vision of Vingilot, by Varda made glorious,outshone all the stars, the ship of Gil-Estel.And still even yet, through all the years innumerable,your brow hallowed ‧ with the bright raysof the Jewel of Fëanor, as on journeys beyond the worldyou come and go, then, carrying the tidingsthat the Children in their need ‧ are never forsakenby the Powers of Good, appears in the twilightthe Silmaril, the signal, the symbol of rescueto Men in Middle-Earth ‧ whenever Morgoth’s legacyof strife and deceit ‧ grows strong again in Arda;that when evil seems over-strong ‧ in our age of the world,our hope may rekindle, beholding in your beacon,still lovely and living, the light of the Two Trees.All hail Eärendil ‧ most excellent of stars.
Copyright © Pat Masson, 1980.
Originally published in Mallorn, Journal of the Tolkien Society, 14, p. 32.
Reprinted in Forgotten Ground Regained: A Journal of Alliterative Verse, New Series, Issue 2, Spring, 2024, with the permission of her family.
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