return

1252 the return of the king
‘Ent-draughts?’ said Sam. ‘There you go about Ents again;
but what they are beats me. Why, it will take weeks before
we get all these things sized up!’
‘Weeks indeed,’ said Pippin. ‘And then Frodo will have to
be locked up in a tower in Minas Tirith and write it all down.
Otherwise he will forget half of it, and poor old Bilbo will be
dreadfully disappointed.’
At length Gandalf rose. ‘The hands of the King are hands
of healing, dear friends,’ he said. ‘But you went to the very
brink of death ere he recalled you, putting forth all his power,
and sent you into the sweet forgetfulness of sleep. And though
you have indeed slept long and blessedly, still it is now time
to sleep again.’
‘And not only Sam and Frodo here,’ said Gimli, ‘but you
too, Pippin. I love you, if only because of the pains you have
cost me, which I shall never forget. Nor shall I forget finding
you on the hill of the last battle. But for Gimli the Dwarf you
would have been lost then. But at least I know now the look
of a hobbit’s foot, though it be all that can be seen under a
heap of bodies. And when I heaved that great carcase off
you, I made sure you were dead. I could have torn out my
beard. And it is only a day yet since you were first up and
abroad again. To bed now you go. And so shall I.’
‘And I,’ said Legolas, ‘shall walk in the woods of this fair
land, which is rest enough. In days to come, if my Elven-lord
allows, some of our folk shall remove hither; and when we
come it shall be blessed, for a while. For a while: a month, a
life, a hundred years of Men. But Anduin is near, and Anduin
leads down to the Sea. To the Sea!
To the Sea, to the Sea! The white gulls are crying,
The wind is blowing, and the white foam is flying.
West, west away, the round sun is falling.
Grey ship, grey ship, do you hear them calling,
The voices of my people that have gone before me?
I will leave, I will leave the woods that bore me;