The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. Christina Scull

beyond the sea,

      and roaming over Belmarie

      and Thellamie and Fantasie.

      He made a shield and morion

      of coral and of ivory,

      a sword he made of emerald,

      and terrible his rivalry

      with elven-knights of Aerie

      and Faerie, with paladins

      that golden-haired and shining-eyed

      came riding by and challenged him.

      Of crystal was his habergeon,

      his scabbard of chalcedony;

      with silver tipped at plenilune

      his spear was hewn of ebony.

      His javelins were of malachite

      and stalactite — he brandished them,

      and went and fought the dragon-flies

      of Paradise, and vanquished them.

      He battled with the Dumbledors,

      the Hummerhorns, and Honeybees,

      and won the Golden Honeycomb;

      and running home on sunny seas

      in ship of leaves and gossamer

      with blossom for a canopy,

      he sat and sang, and furbished up

      and burnished up his panoply.

      He tarried for a little while

      in little isles that lonely lay,

      and found there naught but blowing grass;

      and so at last the only way

      he took, and turned, and coming home

      with honeycomb, to memory

      his message came, and errand too!

      In derring-do and glamoury

      he had forgot them, journeying

      and tourneying, a wanderer.

      So now he must depart again

      and start again his gondola,

      for ever still a messenger,

      a passenger, a tarrier,

      a-roving as a feather does,

      a weather-driven mariner.

      

      Little Princess Mee

      Lovely was she

      As in elven-song is told:

      She had pearls in hair

      All threaded fair;

      Of gossamer shot with gold

      Was her kerchief made,

      And a silver braid

      Of stars about her throat.

      Of moth-web light

      All moonlit-white

      She wore a woven coat,

      And round her kirtle

      Was bound a girdle

      Sewn with diamond dew.

      She walked by day

      Under mantle grey

      And hood of clouded blue;

      But she went by night

      All glittering bright

      Under the starlit sky,

      And her slippers frail

      Of fishes’ mail

      Flashed as she went by

      To her dancing-pool,

      And on mirror cool

      Of windless water played.

      As a mist of light

      In whirling flight

      A glint like glass she made

      Wherever her feet

      Of silver fleet

      Flicked the dancing-floor.

      She looked on high

      To the roofless sky,

      And she looked to the shadowy shore;

      Then round she went,

      And her eyes she bent

      And saw beneath her go

      A Princess Shee

      As fair as Mee:

      They were dancing toe to toe!

      She was as light

      As Mee, and as bright;

      But Shee was, strange to tell,

      Hanging down

      With starry crown

      Into a bottomless well!

      Her gleaming eyes

      In great surprise

      Looked up to the eyes of Mee:

      A marvellous thing,

      Head-down to swing

      Above a starry sea!

      Only their feet

      Could ever meet;

      For where the ways might lie

      To find a land

      Where they do not stand

      But hang down in the sky

      No one could tell

      Nor learn in spell

      In all the elven-lore.

      So still on her own

      An elf alone

      Dancing as before

      With pearls in hair

      And kirtle fair

      And slippers frail

      Of fishes’ mail went Mee:

      Of fishes’ mail

      And slippers frail

      And kirtle fair

      With pearls in hair went Shee!

      

      There is an inn, a merry old inn

      beneath an old grey hill,

      And there they brew a beer so brown

      That the Man