Aragorn looked at them, and there was pity in his eyes rather than wrath; for these were young men from Rohan, from Westfold far away or husbandmen from Lossarnach, and to them Morder had been from childhood a name of evil, and yet unreal, a legend that had no part in their simple life; and now they walked like men in a hideous dream made true, and they understood not this war nor why fate should lead them to such a pass.

JRRT

The eyes were hollow and the carven beard was broken, but about the high stern forehead there was a coronal of silver and gold. A trailing plant with flowers like small white stars had bound itself across the brows as if in reverence for the fallen king, 'They cannot conquer for ever!' said Frodo. And then suddenly the brief glimpse was gone. The Sun dipped and vanished, and as if at the shuttering of a lamp, black night fell.

JRRT

As I have begun, so I will go on. We come now to the very brink, where hope and despair are akin. To waver is to fall.

JRRT

At last he gasped: 'Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What's happened to the world?' 'A great Shadow has departed,' said Gandalf, and then he laughed, and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days upon days without count. It fell upon his ears like the echo of all the joys he had ever known. But he himself burst into tears. Then, as a sweet rain will pass down a wind of spring and the sun will shine out the clearer, his tears ceased, and his laughter welled up, and laughing he sprang from his bed.

JRRT

Thy Spirit, Lord, has stirred our souls, And by its inward shining glow We see anew our sacred goals And feel thy nearness here below. No burning bush near Sinai Could show thy presence, Lord, more nigh.

Frank I. Kooyman

For a fleeting moment, they would have thought that they beheld an old weary hobbit, shrunken by the years that had carried him far beyond his time, beyond friends and kin, and the fields and streams of youth, an old starved pitiable thing.

JRRT

Aragorn looked at the pale stars, and at the moon, now sloping behind the western hills that enclosed the valley. "This is a night as long as years. Yet dawn is ever the hope of men."

JRRT

'As for myself,' said Eomer, 'I have little knowledge of these deep matters; But I need it not. This I know, and it is enough, that as my friend Aragorn succoured me and my people, so I will aid him when he calls. I will go.'

JRRT

And with that shout the king came. His horse was white as snow, golden was his shield, and his spear was long. Light sprang in the sky. Night departed. So King Théoden rode from Helm's Gate and clove his path to the great Dike.

JRRT

A strong place and wonderful was Isengard, and long it had been beautiful; and there great lords had dwelt, the wardens of Gondor upon the West, and wise men that watched the stars. But Saruman had slowly shaped it to his shifting purposes, and made it better, as he though, being deceived -- for all those arts and subtle devices, for which he forsook his former wisdom, and which fondly he imagined were his own, came but from Mordor;

JRRT