The Lay of Leithian - Release from bondage

[Fat middle]

LOTR, Sil. and The Hobbit in English.

UT and HOME books in Spanish.

[Fat middle]

i've retaken it. just read the combat between Huan and Thu. amazing

also i found some beautiful verses at the end of Chapter IX:

She found his arms and swooned away
just at the rising of the day.

and those verses made a bell rang within my head... i've heard this before...

She left his arms and slipped away
just at the breaking of the day.

those are the last verses of Chapter III. There cannot be a better way of expressing the joy of their meeting

[Wayfarer]

A king, there was in days of old...

As for why Tolkien abandoned the lay, I think there are a number of reasons you can cite.

For one, he must have become rather tired after writing, revising, then scrapping the entire thing twice. While I feel that he should have simply continued to work on the first draft (Which is my favorite) it recieved much technical criticism from various sources. That, coupled with the fact that the lay was already quite long. Thousands of lines, made it a rather daunting task.

I am not at all ashamed to admit that I frequently steal pieces of Tolkien's uncompleted poetry and rearrange it. The thought /has/ crossed my mind that someone should go ahead and complete the gest...

[Artanis]

Originally posted by Fat middle
also i found some beautiful verses at the end of Chapter IX:
and those verses made a bell rang within my head... i've heard this before... those are the last verses of Chapter III. There cannot be a better way of expressing the joy of their meeting

I noticed those verses too. Small things that stands out. Lovely.