Éarendel at the Helm

Éarendel at the Helm is a poem that was written by J.R.R. Tolkien in the autumn of 1931 to be part of his lecture A Secret Vice.

Poem

A white horse in the sun shining,
A white ship in the sea gliding,
Éarendel at the helm;
Green waves in the sea moving,
White froth at the prow spuming
Glistening in the sun;
Foam-riders with hair like blossom
And pale hands on the sea’s bosom
Chanting wild songs;
Taut ropes like harps tingling,
From far shores a faint singing
On islands in the deep;
The bent sails in the wind billowing,
The loud wind in the sails bellowing,
The road going on for ever,
Éarendel at the helm,
His eyes shining, the sea gliding,
To havens in the West!

Background

Tolkien originally wrote the poem in Qenya in the autumn of 1931, entitling it simply as Earendel and used it in a lecture on language as an early example of language invention. Tolkien later revised and expanded the poem in English, giving it the new title of Earendel at the Helm and Éarendel at the Helm.

The print poem was published posthumously on pages 216-7 of The Essays of J.R.R. Tolkien: The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays' in 1983.