JRR Tolkien was 22 years old.
Éarendel sprang up from the Ocean's cup
In the gloom of the mid-world's rim;
From the door of Night as a ray of light
Leapt over the twilight brim,
And launching his bark like a silver spark
From the golden-fading sand
Down the sunlit breath of Day's fiery Death
He sped from Westerland.
He threaded his path o'er the aftermath
Of the glory of the Sun,
And went wandering far past many a star
In his gleaming galleon.
On the gathering tide of darkness ride
The argosies of the sky,
And spangle the night with their sails of light
As the Evening star goes by.
But unheeding he dips past these twinkling ships,
By his wandering spirit whirled
On an magic quest through the darkening West
Toward the margent of the world;
And he fares in haste o'er the jewelled waste
To the dusk from whence he came
With his heart afire with bright desire
And his face in silver flame.
For the Ship of the Moon from the East comes soon
From the Haven of the Sun,
Whose white gates gleam in the coming beam
Of the mighty silver one.
Lo! with bellying clouds as his vessel's shrouds
He weighs anchor down the dark,
And on shimmering oars leaves the skiey shores
In his argent-orbéd bark.
And Éarendel fled from that Shipman dread
Beyond the dark earth's pale,
Back under the rim of the Ocean dim,
And behind the world set sail;
And he heard the mirth of the folk of earth
And hearkened to their tears,
As the world dropped back in a cloudy wrack
On its journey down the years.
Then he glimmering passed to the starless vast
As an isléd lamp at sea,
And beyond the ken of mortal men
Set his lonely errantry,
Tracking the Sun in his galleon
And voyaging the skies
Till his splendour was shorn by the birth of Morn
And he died with the Dawn in his eyes.
**
I first had this poem brought to my attention by the reading and analysis on John Garth's Tolkien and the Great War; although it was mentioned by Carpenter's biography as the earliest recorded beginning of the Legendarium, and was featured in The Book of Lost Tales which I had read - but without registering this lovely poem.
In my slow read through of the chronological ordering of JRR Tolkiens poems (in the 2024 three volume Collected Poems, edited by Scull and Hammond) this is the sixteenth poem, and the earliest that I whole-heartedly enjoyed and appreciated.
I also preferred the first draft - that version reproduced above - over Tolkien's several later revisions. Some of my favourite lines, including the first, were omitted or changed in later versions.
The revisions came after JRRT tried to discover what this poem meant - he was (apparently) not consciously aware of the poems meaning at the time of writing.
The word Earendil (encountered in the context of an Old English poem Crist) was of great significance to Tolkien - it seems to have acted as a catalyst which started the creation of his mythology (the Legendarium) - initially with the Lost Tales.
At the point when the above poem was written, the meaning of Earendil had not crystallized for Tolkien. It was during the process of working on this poem that it began to be "discovered".
At the time of writing, Earendil was apparently a person, a mariner who launches from the ocean into the skies; and who encounters personified celestial bodies the Sun, and Moon, and Venus - the evening star.
He traverses the dark aspect of the earth from West (sunset) to East (sunrise); and then dies, apparently in a kind of blissful consummation, by being consumed by the light of dawn.
This may be a cyclical myth of the events of every night; or it may be the account of a single day's - triumphant, but terminal - voyage. Tolkien seems to have been drawn to both possibilities in his later work.
Later revisions tried to clarify, or impose, a more consistent allegorical and/or mythological meaning. After many intermediate stages; the character of Earendil (half-elven, father of Elrond and Elros) was eventually given a vital role in the mythology.
And - in his enchanted boat and with a Silmaril on his brow - Earendil was ultimately transformed into what we call "Venus", which is (at different phases of its orbit) both the Evening Star and the Morning Star (brightest of all celestial bodies, except the moon); recognized as a sign of new hope for the elves of Middle Earth.
But this destination not was evident to Tolkien at the time of first writing the Voyage of Earendil. He was groping in the dark, and working almost entirely by inspiration and intuition.
A great deal was gained by the subsequent development of the myths - and we modern readers look back from this state of knowledge; but I also feel that something fresh and lovely in the September 1914 poem was lost in the process.
