return

1188 the return of the king
On either side there was a low door; both were closed and
locked. There was no sound at all.
‘A dead end,’ muttered Sam; ‘and after all my climb! This
can’t be the top of the tower. But what can I do now?’
He ran back to the lower storey and tried the door. It would
not move. He ran up again, and sweat began to trickle down
his face. He felt that even minutes were precious, but one by
one they escaped; and he could do nothing. He cared no
longer for Shagrat or Snaga or any other orc that was ever
spawned. He longed only for his master, for one sight of his
face or one touch of his hand.
At last, weary and feeling finally defeated, he sat on a step
below the level of the passage-floor and bowed his head into
his hands. It was quiet, horribly quiet. The torch, that was
already burning low when he arrived, sputtered and went
out; and he felt the darkness cover him like a tide. And then
softly, to his own surprise, there at the vain end of his long
journey and his grief, moved by what thought in his heart he
could not tell, Sam began to sing.
His voice sounded thin and quavering in the cold dark
tower: the voice of a forlorn and weary hobbit that no listening
orc could possibly mistake for the clear song of an Elvenlord.
He murmured old childish tunes out of the Shire, and
snatches of Mr. Bilbo’s rhymes that came into his mind like
fleeting glimpses of the country of his home. And then suddenly
new strength rose in him, and his voice rang out, while
words of his own came unbidden to fit the simple tune.
In western lands beneath the Sun
the flowers may rise in Spring,
the trees may bud, the waters run,
the merry finches sing.
Or there maybe ’tis cloudless night
and swaying beeches bear
the Elven-stars as jewels white
amid their branching hair.