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Things of Middle-earth

Out of doubt, out of dark to the day's rising

Type: Songs & Stories

Other Names:
Éomer's Song (LoTR index only)

Description:

A poem spoken by Éomer at the last stand of the Riders of Rohan in the Battle of the Pelennor. See also the similar burial song for Théoden:
[Éomer] let blow the horns to rally all men to his banner that could come thither; for he thought to make a great shield-wall at the last, and stand, and fight there on foot till all fell, and do deeds of song on the fields of Pelennor, though no man should be left in the West to remember the last King of the Mark. So he rode to a green hillock and there set his banner, and the White Horse ran rippling in the wind.

Out of doubt, out of dark to the day's rising
I came singing in the sun, sword unsheathing.
To hope's end I rode and to heart's breaking:
Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!

These staves he spoke, yet he laughed as he said them. For once more lust of battle was on him; and he was still unscathed, and he was young, and he was king: the lord of a fell people. And lo! even as he laughed at despair he looked out again on the black ships, and he lifted up his sword to defy them.

The Return of the King, LoTR Book 5, Ch 6, The Battle of the Pelennor Fields

Contributors: Lyllyn 24Aug03

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