The Roads from My Door

The path it goes from my doorstep,
Onto open roads and ways,
It meanders over hills,
And runs beside swift rivers,
Through tunnels and past caves,
Into quiet valleys where the road twists and turns,
Worn and weary over tall mountaintops,
Where the jagged peaks scrape the sky,
It wanders past the sea and into hidden bays,
Inside hidden woods it crawls,
And walks in green fields of grass,
Where the morning breeze plays,
It skulks past lush forests and through the dark trees,
Where in the night the dark things prowl,
Underneath branches and over boughs it climbs,
Passing golden fields and dark ravines it leaps about,
It travels beyond fallen kingdoms where noble lords lie,
Beneath starlit skies in the dark of night,
Into scalding deserts and endless sands,
Passing far reaching plains and eternal halls,
And well-further than what the eyes can see,
Past the world’s ending and into worlds beyond,
Never-ending is the road,
My feet like the ground beneath me, I can do naught but follow,
I go where the road leads me, Never back to my own door.


And then in the margin of the page I jotted this down:

Just, the road will not be,
Unjust, neither shall it be,
It shall every be as it may,
Enter on it with caution, for it will lead you on its own way.

I love Tolkien's work.

Um... your poem has a bit to much description for my tastes. (Just me...)
The rhythm also seems... odd.
But I do like your words and the idea! It is an interesting interpretation.

Never-ending is the road,
My feet like the ground beneath me, I can do naught but follow,

Best two lines. (In my opinion.)

Keep Writing,
~FW~

I feel an important thing you're not quite following is the rhythm that Tolkien uses in his poetry. When something doesn't flow right, then that's the first thing you notice. I recommend counting your syllables--if you want to keep it iambic pentameter, that's really important. The next line and entire stanza cannot vary more than one or two syllables in difference. I like the fact that you have a twist to the poem, saying "you don't ever mean to go home". How about if you explain that a little more in the poem? Make it deeper? "Far from home though may I be, I turn not back across the sea", or "The road is my once and future home, forever on it shall I roam". Explain the sense of the traveler in more than just one or two lines--make that unique to this poem. I also feel you're missing a "point" in this poem, you let the reader wander with you over many places and scenery and yadi yada we get the point, but the issue here is you're kind of just rambling. Tolkien's version states that wandering on the road is a "task", heavy with "errands" and "tasks" and gives a sense of "sorrowful responsiblity". What is the road to you as the "traveler"? Make that point clear.

All in all, not bad, but could use a little revision.

I wasnt trying to copy tolkien's style and it wasnt meant to have any rythm or rhyme, I just sat down and wrote it free verse. But thanks for the input

Okay, so you wrote it free verse. There's still natural rhythm you can work with. Make variations, instead of kind of just listing imagery after imagery. Free verse doesn't mean you ignore rhythm, so much as you adapt it more naturally than iambic pentameter. You can work something with breaking up the stanzas too, because it looks and sounds kind of congested. You can change up your poetry however you feel like it--these are just suggestions. Iambic pentameter would be nice because it would sound more familiar with Tolkien, but it's up to you.

I wasnt being contradictive, I appreciate your input. But if youve ever read adventures of tom bombadil, he sounds very much like this, and that was the most recent book I read, but I see the merit in your points.