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This is the Dark Lord crossing the border,
Bringing his threat of a new world order,
Slavery for the rich, slavery for the poor,
The thing on the corner and the girl next door.
Pulling up Mount Doom, a steady climb:
The gradient's against him, but he’s got the time.
Past smouldering pit and moorland high
Blasting bright flame out of his eye,
Snorting noisily as he passes
Silent miles of wind-bent grasses.
Sheep-dogs seem quite at a loss;
Feigning sleep with paws across.
In the farm he passes everyone shakes,
And something in a barrow gently wakes.
Dawn freshens, the climb is done.
Down to the city he descends
Towards the creatures yelping down the glade of cranes,
Towards the fields of apparatus, the furnaces
Set on the dark plain like gigantic chessmen.
All the land waits for him:
In the dark glens, beside the pale-green sea lochs
Men dread the news.
Rings for dwarves and rings for elves,
Rings for men who aren’t themselves,
Rings with inscriptions you can’t quite read,
Rings that are tempting in your hour of need,
As applications for situations
That seem to promise the end of nations
And gossip, gossip as all affected
Meet in a council that’s quite dejected,
Clever, stupid, short and long,
Archetype and stereotype and just plain wrong.
Thousands are still asleep
Dreaming of terrifying monsters,
They continue their dreams,
And shall wake soon and long for letters,
And none will hear the knock on the door
Without a quickening of the heart,
The reason for which they have quite forgotten.