Poem: The Fourth Age

The Fourth Age

At the end of the Third Age.

When the Dark Lord was cast down

We had a problem to solve.

What could we do with the minions,
The Orcs, the Goblins, the Trolls.

They were created by dark forces.
It was inherent in them.

Surely they couldn’t be trusted to rule themselves?
An Orc King would inevitably become another Dark Lord.

Hotter heads called for a slaughter of the dark races,
But the wisest of us held sway saying,

“Our cities are in ruins.
“Our fields lay unploughed,
“So many of our young men lay dead on the battlefields.

“Even in the hearts of the mountains,
“Veins of precious metals and gemstones
“Lie unclaimed for want of hard-working hands.

“Properly supervised,
“Orc hands can dig,
“Can plough,
“Can haul stone,
“Can build.

“Were not the dark towers,
“So lately brought low,
“Built by the labour of Orc,
“And Goblin,
“And Troll?”

And so the labour trails were organized,
From the ruined dark lands of the East
To the barely less ruined lands of the West.

And our fields were ploughed,
And sown,
And harvested.

And our cities were not only fixed,
But grew and flourished.

And the goblin returned to the dark of the mountain,
Not for iron for dark swords,
But for ploughshares,
And bright silver,
And lucent gems,
For delicate wrought gifts
From Dwarven Kings
To Elven Ladies.

But all through this,
They would sing their guttural songs,
In dark rhythms.

We had to scour their huts
To clear the primitive altars
To the Dark Lord
(In hope of his return?)

So the wise went amongst them
And taught them the songs of the Creator of the Light,
Which now they sing,
(In guttural voice
With dark rhythm),
As they plough,
And build,
And dig.

Are they happy?
Who knows?
They’re Orcs,
And Goblins
And Trolls.

And they were not made like us.

Will there ever be an Orc nation among the free people of the West?

Some of us shudder at the thought
(For their governmental record is not good).

But I say
“They are not ready now,
But who knows?

“Perhaps in the Fifth Age.”

– Peter Darby
Creative Commons, non-commercial, Attribute, Share alike license, 2011

The Fourth Age by Peter Darby is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at pete-darby.livejournal.com.
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