"Where four would walk": An Introduction to J.R.R. Tolkien's Early Poetry
A list of poems to read, a historical overview of Tolkien's early life, and reading prompts
“ ‘I said…why is that cloud so beautiful?’ He said: ‘Because you have begun to write poetry, John Ronald.’ ” —J.R.R. Tolkien, on speaking with G.B. Smith
Welcome to the second segment of A Year of Tolkien: Tolkien’s Early Poetry!
In this introductory post, I’ll give an overview of some of J.R.R. Tolkien’s early poems and the friendships and experiences that inspired him to put pen to paper. I’ll also provide an expanded reading list for this segment, some reading prompts, guided questions, and historical context for Tolkien’s early poetry.
If you’re new here, we’re exploring J.R.R. Tolkien’s lesser known works throughout 2026. We just finished our first segment on Tolkien’s Faërie where we explored “On Fairy-stories” and Smith of Wootton Major. This second segment is all about Tolkien’s Early Poetry and if you’d like to join us, it’s the perfect time to do so! Throughout March and April we’ll be exploring different poems that Tolkien wrote throughout his early years as well as the poetry collection, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. I can’t express how rewarding this slow read through Tolkien’s works has been for me so far and I’m really excited to dive into some of Tolkien’s most beautiful and thought provoking works with you all over the next couple of months!
If you have not yet encountered the poetry of Tolkien or if you find yourself skipping the songs in The Lord of the Rings (don’t worry, you’re not alone!), I invite you to read along with us and discover just how beautiful, informative, and fun Tolkien’s poetry can be.
Welcome to themiddlepage! We’re embracing slow reading, note-taking, and spending time in nature this year. Join us at any time as we explore the lesser known works of J.R.R. Tolkien.
Why Poetry?
Most readers associate J.R.R. Tolkien with the sweeping prose, epic quests, and intricate world-building of The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. But underlying and supporting these epic narratives are the poems and songs that he developed throughout his life. Tolkien’s poetry encompasses intricate layers of humor, wordplay, and subtle but evocative notions of otherworldly joy and magic. To read them is to step into Faërie itself at times, a feeling that I think was very deliberate from Tolkien.
From an early age Tolkien aspired to be first and foremost a poet more than any other kind of writer. Between 1914 and 1915 alone, he wrote more than twenty-five poems and would go on to write hundreds more throughout his lifetime. He would incorporate his poetic skill into his wider Legendarium, writing over 50 poems into The Lord of the Rings and creating lengthy lays of some of his most powerful and epic stories of The Silmarillion.
Ranging in meter, scope, and subject, Tolkien’s early poetry reflects on the ephemeral beauty of his growing mythology, the anxieties of the ongoing war, the sorrow and grief of lost friends, and the joy of youth. For Tolkien, poetry was a mode of composition that allowed for all of these things, offering space to write sweeping romances and historical epics just as much as it offered him an intimate expression of his admiration of nature, the world of Faërie, and the love for his wife, Edith.
When we read Tolkien’s Smith of Wootton Major last month, we considered the importance of song and joy in Faery and how signing and poetry can lead to new ways of perceiving and experiencing the world. As we continue on in this segment, we’ll see just how much Tolkien was practicing that sort of joy and how writing poetry helped shape his own perceptions of the world.
Reading for Segment II: Tolkien’s Early Poetry
Core Reading
(Some of the poems we’ll be discussing for this segment. Read a few of these, some, or all of them— the amount is up to you!)
March: Various selected poetry by J.R.R. Tolkien (read however many you want to from this list!) Click each poem below to get its full text:
April: The Adventures of Tom Bombadil by J.R.R. Tolkien (can be found in Tales From the Perilous Realm)
Supplemental & Optional Reading
(Can be read at anytime between or after the core reading)
The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond .1 Specifically, the introduction and poems 1-46
Tolkien and the Great War by John Garth, I recommend reading in it’s entirety but at least chapters 1-6
Additional essays, videos, and podcasts are recommended at the end of this article! For our general reading list and more about our year long slow read of Tolkien’s works check out the announcement post and the FAQ post.
“An eccentric poet, [Tolkien] did not hew to any era, school, or movement, but tried his hand at different forms and meters because he was pleased to do so or thought it appropriate for a subject. Nor did he hesitate to vary the subject of his poems, whether serious or comic”—Hammond & Scull (xvi)
Tolkien’s Early Poetry and the T.C.B.S
Like much of what captured his early imagination, Tolkien’s interests in poetry date back to his childhood. Tolkien scholar John Garth writes that, “it was through the study of classics, and particularly through school exercises translating English verse into Latin or Greek, that Tolkien’s taste for poetry awakened” (Garth, 13).2 Tolkien also had an early interest in philology (the study of language) from an early age and this love of language was ever present throughout his life. Naturally, the philological wordplay, linguistic rules, and the very shapes, sounds, and meanings of words, all influenced Tolkien in crafting poetry (and languages) of his own.
When it came to crafting is own poetry, Tolkien was continually inspired by tales of mythology, fairies, and classical literature and he never shied away from artfully playing with these stories. Poetry was, and remained for Tolkien, the perfect blend of his love of language and mythology. His early work shows just how much he was willing to let his own sense of humor and play interact with these classical modes of poetry.
His first published epic narrative, “The Battle of the Eastern Field” saw print in King Edward’s School Chronicle in 1911 and takes the school rugby match and its themes of honor, glory, and danger and places it in the mode of epic poetry:
“Skhet mark’d the slaughter,
And toss’d his flaxen crest
And towards the Green-clad Chieftain
Through the carnage pressed;
Who fiercely flung by Sekhet,
Lay low upon the ground,
Till a thick wall of liegemen
Encompassed him around.
His clients from the battle
Bare him some little space,
And gently rubbed his wounded knee,
And scanned his pallid face”—J.R.R. Tolkien, from “The Battle of the Eastern Field” (Garth, 20)
Tolkien would continue writing poetry throughout his years at university and he developed deep friendships with schoolmates who found joy and companionship in reading, reciting, and composing poetry together. In the introduction to Tolkien’s Collected Poems Hammond & Scull write, “Tolkien and his friends read poems, and plays and essays, memorized, declaimed, and debated them, and used them as models of language and moral behavior. They did so in the context of schoolwork, but also privately, because they found it interesting and uplifting” (Scull & Hammond, xiv).
Together with these like-minded friends, Tolkien started the “Tea Club, Barrovian Society” (TCBS), a club that was founded upon a love of literature and sought to change the world through its beauty and art.3 Encouraged by his fellow members of the TCBS and deeply inspired by the works of Finnish and Anglo-Saxon mythology that he was discovering at the time, Tolkien’s creative poetry flourished.
During this time, Tolkien wrote numerous poems: You and Me and the Cottage of Lost Play, The Shores of Faery, Kor, The Voyage of Earendel, and Why the Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon are some of Tolkien’s most memorable lines of poetry. Tolkien worked carefully and thoughtfully on these poems and would often share drafts with his friends and readily received their feedback. Sharing and criticizing each other’s creative works became an integral part of the TCBS and was a favorite pastime of the club’s core members and Tolkien’s closest friends: Rob Gilson, Christopher Wiseman, and G.B Smith.
Gilson, Wiseman, and Smith would indelibly shape Tolkien’s poetry and writing. Smith critiqued Tolkien’s poems where he felt he needed to, but called them “amazingly good” (Garth, 64) and vehemently urged him to publish. Christopher Wiseman disagreed with Tolkien’s infatuation with the supernatural but urged Tolkien to connect the disperse mythologies of his poems, writing “I want you to connect all these up properly & make their meaning & context tolerably clear” (Scull & Hammond, xxix).
Throughout their time in school and beyond, the four friends would read, encourage, and inspire each other. G.B Smith in particular was often moved by Tolkien’s poetry. Once, after reading a recent batch of poetry from Tolkien, Smith wrote, “I have never read anything like them…and certainly nothing better than the best. ‘The Happy Mariners’ is a magnificent effort” (Garth, 106).
“O happy mariners upon a journey far,
beyond the grey islands and past Gondobar,
to those great portals on the final shores
where far away constellate fountains leap,
and dashed against Night’s dragon-headed doors
in foam of stars fall sparkling in the deep!
While I look out alone behind the moon
imprisoned in the white and windy tower,
you bide no moment and await no hour,
but go with solemn song and harpers tune”—J.R.R. Tolkien, from “The Happy Mariners”
A poet himself, Smith feverishly believed in both Tolkien’s poetry and the mission of the TCBS alike, declaring that “through art, the four would have to leave the world better than they had found it” (Garth, 105). Smith felt that the TCBS would re-establish “love of real and true beauty in everyone’s breast’” (Garth 105).
The spirit and idealism of the TCBS would carry the young members into wartime and beyond. Robert Gilson once wrote “At times like this when I am alive to it, it is so obvious that the TCBS is one of the deepest things in my life” (Garth, 101).
One TCBS meeting in particular had a profound affect on Tolkien. With war looming upon them, the fellowship met in December 1914 to talk about poetry, language, and mythology. They called this meeting the “Council of London” and though none of its members knew this, it would be one of the last times all four young men would be able to be together. John Garth writes that this meeting was “a turning point in [Tolkien’s] creative life. It was, he said eighteen months later, the moment when he first became conscious of ‘the hope and ambitions (inchoate and cloudy I know)’ that had driven him ever since, and were to drive him for the rest of his life.” (Garth, 59)
“That Council was as you know followed in my own case with my finding a voice for all kinds of pent up things and a tremendous opening up of everything for me:— I have always laid that to the credit of the inspiration that even a few hours with the four always brought to all of us.” —J.R.R. Tolkien writing to G.B. Smith
on the Council of London (source).
Throughout the war, the TCBS remained ardent admirers of each other’s works and found refuge in each other’s friendship and poetry alike. In 1915 Tolkien sent copies of his poem “Kortirion among the Trees” to his friends who were on the frontlines. Both Gilson and Wiseman enjoyed the poem, with Gilson remarking that reading it had greatly uplifted his spirits.
G.B. Smith, however, simply cherished it. He wrote back to Tolkien: “I carry your last verses…about with me like a treasure…You know as well as I do, my dear John Ronald, that I don’t care a damn if the Bosch drops half-a-dozen high explosives all around and on top of this dugout I am writing in, so long as people go on making verses about ‘Kortirion among the Trees’ and such other topics—that indeed is why I am here, to keep and preserve them” (Garth, 117).
“O fading town upon an inland hill
Old shadows linger in thine ancient gate
Thy robe is grey, thine old heart now is still;
Thy towers silent in the mist await
Their crumbling end, while through the storeyed elms
The Gliding Water leaves these inland realms,
And slips between long meadows to the Sea,
Still bearing downward over murmurous falls
One day and then another to the Sea;
And slowly thither many years have gone,
Since first the Elves here built Kortirion.”
—J.R.R. Tolkien, from “Kortirion among the Trees”
By the time he was twenty three years old, Tolkien “embraced poetry as a favored mode of expression” (Scull & Hammond, xcii). He wrote more than 40 poems between the years of 1914-1918 and with the steady of encouragement of the TCBS, Tolkien worked hard to get his poems in print. He compiled a series of poems together under the title “The Trumpets of Faerie” in attempts to get them published.4 Though he was rejected more than once, his friends were resolute in their belief in Tolkien’s work. Christopher Wiseman wrote to Tolkien, “I am convinced that if you do come out in print you will startle our generation as no one has as yet” (Garth, 208).
G.B. Smith continued to urge his friend to not give up on publishing. In a particularly poignant letter, Smith writes to Tolkien:
“My dear John Ronald, publish by all means. I am a wild and whole-hearted admirer, and my chief consolation is, that if I am scuppered to-night—I am off duty in a few minutes—there will still be a member of the great TCBS to voice what I dreamed and what we all agreed upon…You I am sure are chosen…may you say the things I have tried to say long after I am not there to say them, if such be my lot” (Garth, 119).
Both Rob Gilson and G.B. Smith would die in the war, just 5 months apart in 1916. Their deaths affected Tolkien greatly and both he and Christopher Wiseman soon turned their attention helping publish a posthumous collection of Smith’s poetry in his honor. The collection, “A Spring Harvest” by Geoffrey Bache Smith was published in 1918, with a dedication to his mother.
Although he had little success in publishing his own poetry in his early years, Tolkien’s poems helped build the foundation of his imaginative mythology. And when Tolkien himself went to war, he found comfort and escape in reading and writing the same sort of poetry that had comforted his fellow friends of TCBS.
“From the beginnings, which were mostly about fun, later on during the war years [the TCBS] developed to a fellowship from which each of them drew tremendous strength and comfort” —John Garth on the TCBS (source).
The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and beyond
The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, published in 1962 —nearly 50 years after Tolkien started writing poetry—stands as the first collection of poetry that Tolkien saw published during his lifetime. Tolkien had written many poems into his later works of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, but he had long given up on the idea that a dedicated collection of poetry would see print.
The initial idea for The Adventures of Tom Bombadil didn’t come from Tolkien himself but from a request from a family member. In late 1961, Tolkien’s Aunt Jane asked for a book “with Tom Bombadil at the heart of it” (ATB, 11). Though Tolkien wasn’t inclined to write more on Tom, he thought that his original 1931 poem about Tom Bombadil might make for a good, small booklet, especially if illustrated.
The idea grew from a small booklet featuring just one Tom Bombadil poem into a more full collection that would include several poems that Tolkien had written earlier in his life. He soon found himself pouring over old poems and reworking them to be included in the Bombadil collection for publication.
A few years later in 1965, Tolkien was approached by music composer Donald Swann, who was working on setting some of Tolkien’s poetry from The Lord of the Rings into song. Swann played these compositions to Tolkien during a private visit in Oxford and Tolkien was enthusiastic about his work. He advised him at length on some of the Elvish pronunciations, which Swann took to heart. In 1967 HarperCollins published The Road Goes Ever On: A Song Cycle, which compiled Swann’s sheet music with Tolkien’s poems.
The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and The Road Goes Ever On: A Song Cycle both came to fruition near the end of Tolkien’s life but they are a result of a writer who had never stopped creating poetry. While neither collections contained the poems that a young Tolkien sought to publish as “The Trumpets of Faerie” they showcase Tolkien’s playful poetic style and otherworldly fairy tale settings. In late 2024 with the blessing from Christopher Tolkien before his death, Tolkien scholars Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond published a three volume set of Tolkien’s Collected Poems, finally presenting the world with Tolkien’s expansive poetic work.
Rob Gilson and G.B. Smith wouldn’t live to see how Tolkien’s early poetry flourished into the deeper mythology of The Silmarillion and beloved tale of The Lord of the Rings but their love for Tolkien and his poetry undeniably helped shape the works we know and love today. And while modern readers first experience Tolkien through these works and look back towards his early poetry, Gilson, Wiseman, and Smith—part of the immortal four of the TCBS—were looking forward in time, imagining just how far Tolkien’s creative endeavors would take him:
“It struck me last night that you might write a fearfully good romantic drama, with as much of the ‘supernatural’ as you cared to introduce. Have you ever thought of it?’”
—G.B. Smith to J.R.R. Tolkien, c. 1915 (Garth, 105).
Tolkien’s Poetic Inspirations
Tolkien drew from from a variety of poetic sources throughout his life. His early schooling would have certainly exposed him to the classics and we knew that his friends and fellow TCBS members like G.B. Smith recommended the works of Robert Brooke, Sir Thomas Browne, and Sir Phillip Sydney. Tolkien himself cites multiple poets in a running list he titled “Magnificent Words & Phrases (and their Authors)” which included Tennyson, Sidney, Chaucer, Shelley, Keats, Shakespeare, and many more.
Tolkien was also especially drawn to medieval poetry (something that we’ll explore a little later on this year in our Beowulf and Dark Faerie Translations segments!). While not an exhaustive list of Tolkien’s poetic influences, below are some poets that are thought to have particularly inspired and helped shape Tolkien’s own poetry:
Victorian Era Poetry
William Morris
Francis Thompson
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Romantic Era Poetry
John Keats
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Medieval Poetry
Geoffrey Chaucer
The Gawain Poet
Old English Poetry
Beowulf
The Poetic Edda
Reading and Journal Prompts
Don’t pressure yourself to take any notes during your first read through of the poems—just take each poem for what it is. When you’re ready to annotate, print out copies of the poems so that you can easily mark them up:
Highlight words or phrases that you find particularly beautiful or any that evoke a strong emotional response.
Tolkien really loved poetic alliteration (words starting with the same letter). Look for any moments of alliteration and make sure to read them aloud to hear the effect it has on the poem.
Allow yourself to be confused or curious about any turns of phrases that you don’t quite understand. Circle or underline any of these so that you can return to them later.
Read each poem multiple times and in different ways. Read them aloud to try to catch the meter and cadence of the rhyme. If you’re so inclined, sing or chant the poems. If you have any musical skill, create a melody or music set to one of Tolkien’s poems.
Pick a stanza (or if you’re bold, an entire poem) to memorize. Recite each line until you have enough memorized that you can recall the poem at your leisure. Memorizing poetry is something I’ve personally found really calming and can help regulate my thoughts both as I’m attempting memorize and when I later recite it.
Are there any scenes from the poem that you can draw or illustrate? You don’t have to have a lot of artistic experience to do so: maybe it’s a tree or a sea wave or the stars. Draw these into your journal and write down the lines that inspired you to do so.
photo my own
Reading Suggestions for Selected Poetry
Poem Pairings:
Short-mid length poems with similar themes to read togetherGoblin Feet & Tinfang Warble (bonus: A Song of Aryador)
Kôr – In a City Lost and Dead & The Shores of Faery
The Grey Bridge of Tavrobel & You and Me
The Shores of Faery & The Last Voyage of Eärendel
The City of Present Sorrow & The Song of Eriol
Very Short Poems:
Poems you can read in less than a minuteTinfang Warble
Kôr – In a City Lost and Dead
The Grey Bridge of Tavrobel
Mid-length Poems:
One to three minute readsA Song of Ayrador
Over Hills and Far Away
The Happy Mariners
The last Voyage of Eärendel
The Nameless Land
Longer Poems:
To read when you have more timeKortirion Among the Trees
Why the Man in the Moon Came Down too Soon
The Horns of Ylmir
Essential Poems
The poems I recommend reading if you were to only to read a few!The Shores of Faery
Tinfang Warble
Kortirion Among the Trees
Kôr – In a City Lost and Dead
The Last Voyage of Eärendel
Discussion Questions
Who is the speaker of each poem? What feelings are they trying to express or evoke?
What glimpses of Faërie can you see throughout these poems?
What (if any) hints of Tolkien’s wider mythology can you see in his early work? Are there any parts of any poem that remind you of any of his later characters or themes?
A Moment in Nature
“Amid the girdle of this sleeping land,
Where silver falls the rain and gleaming stand
The whispering host of old deep-rooted trees
That cast long shadows in many a bygone noon,
And murmured many centuries in the breeze”
-J.R.R. Tolkien, from “Kortirion Among the Trees”
Much of Tolkien’s poetry is brimming with evocative and vivid imagery of nature, often at the liminal points of the day. As we saw in Smith of Wootton Major, Smith first awoke to Faery at the rising of the Sun. Tolkien seemed to associate both early dawn and twilight—a time when day and night briefly coalesce—with Faërie and it is a favorite setting in his poetry.
For your reading of Tolkien’s poetry this month, pick out a morning that you can wake up a little early. Make yourself a warm cup of tea in honor of the T.C.B.S. (Tea Club, Barrovian Society) and as the world around you fills up with light and birdsong, read a few of Tolkien’s poems.
“Until the twinkle of the early stars
Comes glinting through their sable bars,
And the white moon climbing up the sky
Looks down upon the ghosts of trees that die
Slowly and silently from day to day.”
-J.R.R. Tolkien, from “Kortirion Among the Trees”
Further Reading
Tolkien’s Immortal Four Meet for the Last Time by John Garth
Tolkien and the Boy Who Didn’t Believe in Fairies by John Garth
Further Watching & Listening:
Robert Gilson: Memoirs of an Infantry Officer (documentary)
Donald Swann’s Song Cycle:
Coming up: I’ll see you next in late March/ early April with a more in-depth post on some of these poems by Tolkien. We won’t get to every last one, but we’ll look at some more closely and explore thier connections to what would become his wider mythology. Remember, every month will have an introductory post (for free & paid subscribers) and an overview / deep dive post (paid subscribers only).
I’ve been really trying to keep costs down for any additional recommended reading and since this one is quite a hefty price, I didn’t include it in my original line up of recommended additional texts. But I would be remiss not to include it for those who really want to dive into Tolkien’s poetry. It is an absolutely treasure trove of scholarship on Tolkien’s poetry and collects nearly 200 of his poems as well as early drafts and commentary on those poems. I can’t recommend it enough. While it’s available to buy in the three book volume, it is also available as an e-book as well, which is much less expensive!
Quotations cited from John Garth are all from Tolkien and the Great War, unless otherwise noted.
The TCBS is a precursor to the group that many Tolkien fans are much more familiar with, The Inklings. As the TCBS was started in Tolkien’s youth, the aims of the club were lofty and idealistic but they also spent their time joking and playing around with each other and the TCBS is as much as a group of idealistic youth as it is just teenage boys having fun in school: “Much of the time the chief goal of the librarians was much less high-minded… they sought to incapacitate each other with laughter” (Garth, 6).
Publishing poetry was an ever-increasing challenge during war time but in 1916 Tolkien was asked by compiler Dora Owens if his poem “Goblin Feet” could be included in a forthcoming collection of Fairy poetry. Tolkien agreed and sent her several of his other fairy poems as well. “Goblin Feet” saw publication in 1920, and in an ironic twist, it was one of the poems that Tolkien would come to strongly dislike later in life. It’s noteworthy that even though Owens chose only to include “Goblin Feet,” she expressed to Tolkien that his other poems gave her: “a great deal of pleasure; they seem to me to have imagination, freshness, and a certain haunting quality in their music. All your fairy poems have the right fairy ring...I think you certainly ought to publish” (Scull & Hammond, xxii).
*** The quote in the title of this article is not from Tolkien, but from G.B. Smith’s elegiac poem for Rob Gilson, who was the first of the TCBS to die in the war:
“Let us tell Quiet Stories of Kind Eyes”
“Let us tell quiet stories of kind eyes
And placid brows where peace and learning sate:
Of misty gardens under evening skies
Where four would walk of old, with steps sedate.Let’s have no word of all the sweat and blood,
Of all the noise and strife and dust and smoke
(We who have seen Death surging like a flood,
Wave upon wave, that leaped and raced and broke).Or let’s sit silently, we three together,
Around a wide hearth-fire that’s glowing red,
Giving no thought to all the stormy weather
That flies above the roof-tree overhead.And he, the fourth, that lies all silently
In some far-distant and untended grave,
Under the shadow of a shattered tree,
Shall leave the company of the hapless brave,And draw nigh unto us for memory’s sake,
Because a look, a word, a deed, a friend,
Are bound with cords that never a man may break,
Unto his heart for ever, until the end.”—G.B. Smith
I’m so excited to dive into Tolkien’s poetry. When I first read the Lord of the Rings as a teen, I admit that I skipped over the poetry and songs. During my most recent read-through of LOTR and the Silmarillion, I found myself enjoying the imagery and rhythm of the poetry.
This introduction is amazing! I'm so happy to read about Tolkien's boyhood friendships. LOTR being such a friendship-focused story, it's so fun to see how he was likely influenced by his real life relationships. I'm so keen to learn more and to explore his poetry.