The Silmarillion

Farewell sweet earth and northern sky,

for ever blest, since here did lie

and here with lissom limbs did run

beneath the Moon, beneath the Sun,

Lúthien Tinúviel

more fair than mortal tongue can tell.

Though all to ruin fell the world

and were dissolved and backward hurled

unmade into the old abyss,

yet were its making good, for this—

the dusk, the dawn, the earth, the sea—

that Lúthien for a time should be.

But of bliss and glad life there is little to be said, before it ends; as works fair and wonderful, while still they endure for eyes to see, are their own record, and only when they are in peril or broken for ever do they pass into song.

But he that sows lies in the end shall not lack of a harvest, and soon he may rest from toil indeed while others reap and sow in his stead.