Index:Poems by J.R.R. Tolkien

”

I said, outside Lichfield Cathedral, to a friend of my youth – long since dead of gas-gangrene (God rest his soul: I grieve still) – ‘Why is that cloud so beautiful?’ He said: ‘Because you have begun to write poetry, John Ronald.’ He was wrong. It was because Death was near, and all was intolerably fair, lost ere grasped. That was why I began to write poetry.

J.R.R. Tolkien, footnote to Letter 43 to Michael Tolkien

This is a list of poems written by J.R.R. Tolkien (years are the date of composition, if not stated otherwise). It does not include poems published within The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (see Poems in The Hobbit and Poems in The Lord of the Rings).

See also: Index:Unpublished material#Poetry

1910s

• The Battle of the Eastern Field, 1911
• Valedictory, 1913
• The Voyage of Eärendel the Evening Star, 1914 (The Book of Lost Tales Part Two, pp. 267-269)
• The Bidding of the Minstrel, 1914 (The Book of Lost Tales Part Two, pp. 269-271 )
• Tinfang Warble, 1914 (The Book of Lost Tales Part One, p. 108)
• Goblin Feet, 1915
• You and Me / and the Cottage of Lost Play, 1915 (revised as The Little House of Lost Play / Mar Vanwa Tyaliéva, The Book of Lost Tales Part One, pp. 27-31)
• Kôr, 1915, published as The City of the Gods in 1923 (The Book of Lost Tales Part One, p. 136)
• Kortirion among the Trees, 1915 (revised in 1937 and in the 1960s, The Trees of Kortirion, The Book of Lost Tales Part One, pp. 33-43)
• Over Old Hills and Far Away, 1915 (rewritten in 1927, The Book of Lost Tales Part One, pp. 108-110)
• A Song of Aryador, 1915 (The Book of Lost Tales Part One, p. 139)
• The Shores of Faëry, 1915 (also The Shores of Elfland, The Book of Lost Tales Part Two, pp. 271-272)
• Habbanan beneath the Stars, 1916 (The Book of Lost Tales Part One, pp. 91-92)
• Narqelion, 1915-1916
• The Sorrowful City, 1916 (The Book of Lost Tales Part Two, pp. 295-298)
• The Song of Eriol, 1917 (The Book of Lost Tales Part Two, pp. 298-299)
• The Horns of Ulmo, 1917 (The Shaping of Middle-earth, pp. 215-217)

1920s

• The Happy Mariners, published in 1920, composed in 1915 (The Book of Lost Tales Part Two, pp. 273-276)
• The Clerkes Compleinte, 1922
• Iúmonna Gold Galdre Bewunden, 1923 (Beowulf and the Critics, pp. ??)
• Poems in A Northern Venture, published in June 1923

• The Eadigan Saelidan
• The Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon
• Enigmata Saxonica Nuper Inventa Duo

• The Cat and the Fiddle: A Nursery-Rhyme Undone and its Scandalous Secret Unlocked, 1923
• An Evening in Tavrobel, 1924
• The Lonely Isle, 1924
• The Princess Ní, 1924
• Light as Leaf on Lindentree, 1925 (The Lays of Beleriand, pp. 108-110)
• The Lay of the Children of Húrin, begun in 1920 or earlier, continued to 1925 (The Lays of Beleriand, pp. 3-130)
• The Flight of the Noldoli from Valinor, 1925 (The Lays of Beleriand, pp. 131-141)
• "Fragment of an alliterative Lay of Eärendel", 1920s (The Lays of Beleriand, pp. 141-144)
• The Lay of the Fall of Gondolin, 1920s (The Lays of Beleriand, pp. 144-149)
• The Lay of Leithian, 1925-1931 (The Lays of Beleriand, pp. 150-367)
• Knocking at the Door, 1927?
• The Nameless Land, 1927 (The Lost Road and Other Writings, pp. 98-100)
• Adventures in Unnatural History and Medieval Metres, being the Freaks of Fisiologus, 1927:

• Fastitocalon
• Iumbo

• Tinfang Warble, published in 1927, composed in 1914

1930s

• The Lay of Beowulf, early 1930s? (Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, pp. ??)
• The Owl and the Nightingale
• Progress in Bimble Town, 1931
• Poems in the essay A Secret Vice (1931), published in 1983 in The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays:

• Oilima Markirya (with a revised version from much later date)
• The Last Ark
• Nieninque
• Earendel
• Earendel at the Helm
• Dir avosaith

• Errantry, 1933
• Firiel, 1934
• Looney, 1934
• The Shadow Man (published in 1936)
• Noel (published in 1936)
• Songs for the Philologists, with E.V. Gordon et al., published in 1936:

• Bagmē Blōma
• Éadig Béo þu!
• Frenchmen Froth
• From One to Five
• I Sat upon a Bench
• Ides Ælfscýne
• Lá Húru
• Lit and Lang
• Natura Apis: Morali Ricardi Eremite
• Ofer Wídne Gársecg
• The Root of the Boot
• Ruddoc Hana
• Syx Mynet

• The Dragon's Visit, 1937
• Again this year, my dear Priscilla, 1938 (Letters from Father Christmas)

1940s

• Fíriel's song, 1940? (The Lost Road and Other Writings, p. 72)
• The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun, December 1945 (Welsh Review)
• Imram (The Death of Saint Brendan), 1946 (Time and Tide, December 1955; Sauron Defeated pp. 261ff, 296ff)

1950s

• Elvish translations of Catholic prayers (ed. Wynne, Smith, Hostetter in Vinyar Tengwar 43, 44, 2002), composed in the 1950s:

• Átaremma (Quenya Pater Noster) versions I-VI
• Aia María (Quenya Ave Maria) versions I-IV
• Litany of Loreto in Quenya
• Ortírielyanna (Quenya Sub Tuum Praesidium)
• Alcar i Ataren (Quenya Gloria Patri)
• Alcar mi Tarmenel na Erun (Quenya Gloria in Excelsis Deo)
• Ae Adar Nín (Sindarin Pater Noster)

• The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son, 1953
• Twenty years have flowed away down the long river, 1958

1960s

• The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, published in 1962:
  • The Adventures of Tom Bombadil
  • Bombadil Goes Boating
  • Errantry
  • Little Princess Mee
  • The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late
  • The Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon
  • The Stone Troll
  • Perry-the-Winkle
  • The Mewlips
  • Oliphaunt
  • Fastitocalon
  • The Cat
  • Shadow-Bride
  • The Hoard
  • The Sea-Bell
  • The Last Ship
• Rosalind Ramage, 1964
• Once upon a Time, 1965 (Winter's Tales for Children 1, pp. 44-45)
• Bilbo's Last Song, 1966 (first published as a poster in 1974)
• For W.H.A., 1967 (in Shenandoah)

Unknown year

• The Complaint of Mîm the Dwarf
• Visio de Doworst
• Mythopoeia published in certain editions of Tree and Leaf, republished in 1999 in an edition of Tree and Leaf in the U.K. only.