Éalá Éarendel Engla Beorhtast is an early poem by J.R.R. Tolkien (according to Christopher Tolkien "the first of the mythology"[1]:271). It is published in full in The Book of Lost Tales Part Two.[1]:267–269
The poem was originally titled The Voyage of Éarendel the Evening Star (with the Old English version Scipfæreld Éarendeles Ǽfensteorran) and was written at Phoenix Farm in September 1914, inspired by a line from the Crist of Cynewulf.[2][3] Under this title Tolkien read the poem at the Oxford Essay Club in the November of the same year, as referenced in Letter 2. By the latest revision, written at an unknown date but "substantially later" than the first, the newer title was given in its Old English form only. This Old English title was taken from the poem that inspired it, rendered in modern English as The Last Voyage of Eärendel.[1]:267
It was the first poem on the subject of Eärendil and describes his voyage from "Westerland", through "the darkling West" and ultimately beyond the world itself. The fourth verse describes the movements of the Sun and Moon in a way which anticipates cosmology of the The Hiding of Valinor and the The Tale of the Sun and Moon.
Poem excerpt
Éarendel arose where the shadow flows
at Ocean's silent brim;
through the mouth of night as a ray of light
where the shores are sheer and dim
he launched his bark like a silver spark
from the last and lonely sand;
then on sunlit breath of day's fiery death
he sailed from Westerland.
See also
- The Bidding of the Minstrel
- The Shores of Faëry
- The Happy Mariners
- Eärendillinwë
- Poems by J.R.R. Tolkien
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien (ed.), The Book of Lost Tales Part Two, "V. The Tale of Eärendel"
- ↑ Humphrey Carpenter, J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography, p. 71
- ↑ Andrew H. Morton, John Hayes, Tolkien's Gedling - 1914