The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. Christina Scull

packed him back to land:

      ‘You had best get a bed in an inn,’ they said;

      ‘the town is near at hand.’

      Only the knell of one slow bell

      high in the Seaward Tower

      Announced the news of his moonsick cruise

      at that unseemly hour.

      Not a hearth was laid, not a breakfast made,

      and dawn was cold and damp.

      There were ashes for fire, and for grass the mire,

      for the sun a smoking lamp

      In a dim back-street. Not a man did he meet,

      no voice was raised in song;

      There were snores instead, for all folk were abed

      and still would slumber long.

      He knocked as he passed on doors locked fast,

      and called and cried in vain,

      Till he came to an inn that had light within,

      and he tapped at a window-pane.

      A drowsy cook gave a surly look,

      and ‘What do you want?’ said he.

      ‘I want fire and gold and songs of old

      and red wine flowing free!’

      ‘You won’t get them here,’ said the cook with a leer,

      ‘but you may come inside.

      Silver I lack and silk to my back —

      maybe I’ll let you bide.’

      A silver gift the latch to lift,

      a pearl to pass the door;

      For a seat by the cook in the ingle-nook

      it cost him twenty more.

      For hunger or drouth naught passed his mouth

      till he gave both crown and cloak;

      And all that he got, in an earthen pot