The road goes ever on

I watched The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers the other day. I have seen it many times, and I should point out before I go any further that I am a huge fan of the Lord of the Rings. Hence, I have read and dearly love the books that the films are based on. Anyway, watching it reminded me of one of my favourite poems found in various forms throughout The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. It is called The road goes ever on. This is how it is written in its original incarnation in The Hobbit:

Roads go ever ever on,

Over rock and under tree,

By caves where never sun has shone,

By streams that never find the sea;

Over snow by winter sown,

And through the merry flowers of June,

Over grass and over stone,

And under mountains in the moon.

Roads go ever ever on

Under cloud and under star,

Yet feet that wandering have gone

Turn at last to home afar.

Eyes that fire and sword have seen

And horror in the halls of stone

Look at last on meadows green

And trees and hills they long have known.

So why do I care about this poem, and why am I writing about it on a blog that is primarily intended for a discussion of mormon issues? Well, I got thinking about this poem, and I was struck by how mormon it felt to me. It struck a chord with me, with all its references to an endless path that we have in front of us to follow and progress along, and the idea that though this road leads through "fire and sword" and "horror in the halls of stone", we will eventually "Look at last on meadows green / And trees and hills [we] long have known". While I certainly do not believe Tolkien was contemplating eternal progression and the pre-existence while writing this poem (he objected to referring to any of his work as overtly Christian, let alone mormon), I was struck by how prevalent these ideas seem to be in the poem, and I certainly find it a moving and poetic expression of these doctrines.

The poem makes a slightly modified appearance in the very first chapter of The Fellowship of the Ring:

The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with eager feet,

Until it joins some larger way

Where many paths and errands meet.

And whither then? I cannot say.

In this I read the beautiful concept of following the path that God calls us to tread, trusting in His wisdom, and having faith that we are playing an important role in "some larger way / Where many paths and errands meet".  This concept is further reiterated in Frodo's recollections of Bilbo's thoughts on the Road: "He used often to say there was only one Road; that it was like a great river: its springs were at every doorstep, and every path was its tributary. 'It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door,' he used to say. 'You step onto the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.'".

Of course, the variant that appears in The Return of the King seems to conflict with eternal progression if we assume that 'the Road' is our eternal journey, however that can also be meaningful and profound from a mormon perspective if we use an interpretation of 'the Road' as our time spent in mortality and our efforts to further God's plan for His children while in mortality.

The Road goes ever on and on

Out from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

Let others follow it who can!

Let them a journey new begin,

But I at last with weary feet

Will turn towards the lighted inn,

My evening-rest and sleep to meet.

However, I am not finished. There is more poetry for us to gleefully tear out of context and apply to a mormon worldview. In the second stanza of 'Upon the hearth the fire is red', a song first sung in The Fellowship of the Ring, Tolkien poetically talks about the dizzying heights our journey may lead to:

Still round the corner there may wait

A new road or a secret gate,

And though we pass them by today,

Tomorrow we may come this way

And take the hidden paths that run

Towards the Moon or to the Sun.

This concept of hidden paths that, if followed, will lead travellers to the sun or the moon is even further amplified in the second version of this song, in The Return of the King:

Still round the corner there may wait

A new road or a secret gate,

And though I oft have passed them by,

A day will come at last when I

Shall take the hidden paths that run

West of the Moon, East of the Sun.

In this version, the final destination is not only the moon and the sun, but "west of the moon" and "east of the sun". For those of you who don't know your fairy-tale lore, "east of the sun and west of the moon" is a phrase traditionally used to refer to a different world or realm that is extraordinarily difficult to reach or enter. If we are going to apply this poem to a mormon framework, then this verse expresses an unshakeable faith that one day we will attain exaltation, no matter how difficult or unlikely or far-fetched it may seem at times.

So, basically, the Lord of the Rings should be canonised because it clearly contains the fulness of the restored gospel and JRR Tolkien must have been a divinely inspired prophet of God.  That was a joke, by the way, in case you didn't pick that up. But in all seriousness, I love Tolkien's poetry, and have always loved his books. It was just a pleasant surprise to discover that some of his work could be interpreted in a way that illustrated some of the most beautiful concepts in mormon thought, and made me value and appreciate it all the more.