The Battle of the Pelennor

I was reading Return of the King this afternoon, and I was really impressed by the lament Tolkien wrote for the fallen Rohirrim at the battle of the Pelennor, which he called the Song of the Mounds of Mundberg. It is a remarkable technical achievement, straight in the tradition of the Old English poets.

The meter is as Old English poetry, with two heavy stresses, a pause in the middle of the line, and two more stresses. Three of the stresses alliterate in each line, and generally the fourth alliterates with something somewhere in the line. The word choice is heavily reminiscent of Old English, appositive-heavy, adjective-rich. The "-ing" suffix is like the Norse "-son," like "Peterson."

I would that I could write like this, for my story would be much the better for it!

We heard of the horns in the hills ringing,
the swords shining in the South-kingdom.
Steeds went striding to the Stoningland
as wind in the morning. War was kindled.
There Theoden fell, Thengling mighty,
to his golden halls and green pastures
in the Northern fields never returning,
high lord of the host. Harding and Guthlaf,
Dunhere and Deorwine, doughty Grimbold,
Herefara and Heubrand, Horn and Fastred,
fought and fell there in a far country:
in the Mounds of Mundberg under mould they lie
with their league-fellows, lords of Gondor.
Neither Hirluin the Fair to the hills by the sea,
Nor Forlong the old to the flowering vales
ever, to Arnach, to his own country
returned in triumph; nor the tall bowmen,
Derufin and Fuilin, to their dark waters,
meres of Morthond under mountain-shadows.
Death in the morning and at day's ending
lords took and lowly. Long now they sleep
under grass in Gondor by the Great River.
Grey now as tears, gleaming silver,
red then it rolled, roaring water:
foam dyed with blood flamed at sunset;
as beacons mountains burned at evening;
red fell the dew in Rammas Echor.