Page 212 - The Hobbit

And bright are the windows of Night in her tower.

Dance all ye joyful, now dance all together!
Soft is the grass, and let foot be like feather!
The river is silver, the shadows are fleeting;
Merry is May-time, and merry our meeting.

Sing we now softly, and dreams let us weave him!
Wind him in slumber and there let us leave him!
The wanderer sleepeth. Now soft be his pillow!

Lullaby! Lullaby! Alder and Willow!

Sigh no more Pine, till the wind of the morn!
Fall Moon! Dark be the land!
Hush! Hush! Oak, Ash, and Thorn!
Hushed be all water, till dawn is at hand!

"Well, Merry People!" said Bilbo looking out. "What time by the moon is this?

Your lullaby would waken a drunken goblin! Yet I thank you."
"And your snores would waken a stone dragon – yet we thank you," they
answered with laughter. "It is drawing towards dawn, and you have slept now
since the night's beginning. Tomorrow, perhaps, you will be cured of weariness."

"A little sleep does a great cure in the house of Elrond," said he; "but I will
take all the cure I can get. A second good night, fair friends!" And with that he
went back to bed and slept till late morning.
Weariness fell from him soon in that house, and he had many a merry jest and

dance, early and late, with the elves of the valley. Yet even that place could not
long delay him now, and he thought always of his own home. After a week,
therefore, he said farewell to Elrond, and giving him such small gifts as he would

accept, he rode away with Gandalf. Even as they left the valley the sky darkened
in the West before them, and wind and rain came up to meet them.
"Merry is May-time!" said Bilbo, as the rain beat into his face. "But our back
is to legends and we are coming home. I suppose this is a first taste of it."

"There is a long road yet," said Gandalf.
"But it is the last road," said Bilbo. They came to the river that marked the
very edge of the borderland of the Wild, and to the ford beneath the steep bank,

which you may remember. The water was swollen both with the melting of the
snows at the approach of summer, and with the daylong rain; but they crossed
with some difficulty, and pressed forward, as evening fell, on the last stage of their