On the Borders of Mirkwood by Himring

On the Borders of Mirkwood

Before we built the wall, we should have asked
what we were keeping in or walling out
and who, in doing so, we might offend.
Something’s out there that does not love our wall,
that wants it down. ‘It could be elves’, we said.
Their hunters’ work, perhaps? The gaps I mean,
no one has seen them made or heard them made,
where even a horse or two could pass abreast
where not one stone is left upon a stone.
Did they do this to ease their coursing dogs
and drive the deer and rabbits out of hiding?
We wore our fingers rough making repairs.

At last, I dared to go and ask their prince.
‘My lord, good fences make good neighbours.’
Our apple trees would never get across
to eat the cones under his pines, I told him.
‘It is not deer exactly that we hunt,
but things that move in darkness and the shade
not of woods only but a deeper Shadow.
Count yourselves lucky that you did not see them!
There where you live you need those walls.’
He set a day to meet and walk the line
and put the wall between us up again.
That was no common building! I see him there
bringing a stone grasped firmly in each hand.
I swear he used a spell to make them balance;
‘Stay where you are’ was what he said in Elvish.
How wrong we were! The Good Folk make good neighbours.