This week, I have chosen a poem by J.R.R. Tolkien: “I Sit Beside the Fire and Think” which is a reflection on the past and a rumination on the future.

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 (1896—1973)

Poem 332. I Sit Beside the Fire 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.

For those who don’t know Tolkien’s work, this is composed and sung by the writer and poet Bilbo in his retirement at Rivendell during the events of The Lord of the Rings. He looks back at his life, thinks of the times to come that he won’t see, and finally turns to the present. For all that the poem is set in a fantastic world, it is as applicable to our lives as to Bilbo’s.

The poem consists of three pairs of stanzas, each with the first line “I sit beside the fire and think”: the first stanzas reflect on the past, the second pair on the future, and the third on the present.

The first two stanzas remind us that Bilbo has travelled far and remembers what he has seen, though his mind’s eye focuses on the natural world rather than the many terrible and horrifying events he has lived through:

You will notice already that Mr. Baggins was not quite so prosy as he liked to believe, also that he was very fond of flowers.
The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien.

We see through his eyes the beauty of summer flowers and the butterflies that tend them and the colours and sensations of autumn and we get a real sense of the pleasure he feels in recalling them.

The middle stanzas show us Bilbo’s desire to live on and explore the world in which he lives, although he knows that a time is coming “when winter comes without a spring/that I shall ever see.” Again, he is keen to enjoy the natural world, particularly the everchanging greens of the woods.

The third pair of stanzas tie the past and the future together and concludes that although he might be lost in his thoughts of the past or a reverie of the future, his ear is constantly listening for the returning feet of his friends and family.

Tolkien uses this poem to underline that Bilbo’s part in the story told in The Lord of the Rings has come to an end, and he can do little more than contemplate past and future while he waits for those who are taking an active part to return with their tales of adventure. We see that Bilbo has become the chronicler of others’ deeds, rather than his own, and that he has returned to his original character of bucolic peace despite his long association with the evil Ring.

The song has been set to music several times—perhaps the first to do so was the pianist and composer Donald Swann, perhaps better known for his revues with Michael Flanders and “The Hippopotamus Song” among others. He was very much taken with Tolkien’s work, and there is a video on YouTube where he introduces his musical setting of this poem. His version ends with the words of another poem sung in Rivendell: an Elvish hymn to the goddess Elbereth:

A Elbereth Gilthoniel
silivren penna míriel
o menel aglar elenath!
Na-chaered palan-díriel
o galadhremmin ennorath,
Fanuilos, le linnathon
nef aear, sí nef aearon!

When I was younger, I found this poem intriguing and was mightily interested to find a recording of Tolkien himself reading these mysterious lines, to the point where I learned them by heart, though I didn’t have any way of understanding them.

A more recent version by Clamavi de Profundis can also be found on YouTube as well as Tolkien’s reading.

I like it because it describes beautifully the reminiscences of an elderly person, because it is linked to Flanders and Swann, and because it reminds me of the first time I read The Lord of the Rings and fell in love with the world of Middle Earth, a world that led on to the Dying Earth, Nehwon, Lyonesse, Discworld and so many others.

Voices at the Door

Poem 332. I Sit Beside the Fire and Think

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