Light Dawns

Thirteen Quotes about Morning
from LOTR

Thursday Thirteen

Alright, so I'll admit it: I read Lord of the Rings. That's present tense, because I re-read it so often. No, I'm not really a fantasy genre fan--mystery is more to my liking--but I absolutely adore beauty in descriptive phrases, and these are abundant, nay, spilling over, in anything written by Tolkien. Here are some of my favorite descriptions of "Morning"


1. The sun got up, the clouds vanished, flags were unfurled and the fun began.

2. It was a pale morning: In the East, behind long clouds like lines of soiled wool stained red at the edges, lay glimmering deeps of yellow.

3. The light of a clear autumn morning was now glowing in the valley. The noise of bubbling waters came up from the foaming river-bed. Birds were singing and a wholesome peace lay on the land.









4. It was a cold chill hour before the first stir of dawn,
and the moon was low. *


5. In the morning he woke to find that the rain had stopped. The clouds were still thick, but they were breaking, and pale strips of blue appeared between them.


6. He walked along the terraces above the loud-flowing Bruinen and watched the pale, cool sun rise above the far mountains and shine down, slanting through the thin silver mist; the dew upon the yellow leaves was glimmering, and the woven nets of gossamer twinkled on every bush.






7. The day came like fire and smoke. Low in the East there were black bars of cloud like the fumes of a great burning.
The rising sun lit them from beneath with flames of murky red;
but soon it climbed above them into a clear sky.

8. They woke to find a cool sun shining into the great court, and on to the floor of the bay. Shreds of high cloud were overhead, running on a stiff easterly wind.

9. The rising sun was hazy, and behind it, following it slowly up out of the sky, there was a growing darkness as of a great storm moving out of the East.

10. The light came grey and pale and they did not see the rising of the sun. The air above was heavy with fog and a reek lay on the land about them.

11. Day came and the fallow sun blinked over the lifeless ridges of Ered Lithui.

12. So soon they struggled on once more until the dawn began to spread slowly in the wide grey solitude.

13. And the Shadow departed, and the Sun was unveiled, and light leaped forth; and the waters of Anduin shone like silver, and in all the houses of the City men sang for the joy that welled up in their hearts from what source they could not tell












All quotes are taken from The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King, by J.R.R. Tolkien, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, The Riverside Press Cambridge,Copyright 1965.

* Sunrise through Fog Shrouded Trees by Don Moorcroft