Air:  The South Wind -

I would stay and play in the sun all day, ruffle the waves or sift the sand, but now my sky is filled with smoke, and I carry cries too grievous almost to bear.

Their calls I heard beseaching, flattering, so jauntily I filled their sails and pushed them up the Anduin.  Now I am clothed in their livery – blood and darkness.

Now who in Linhir or Pelargir will open their windows or homes to me? 

This one?  He smells of death and stale air yet men flock to row his boats and clean skies follow.  

Can he need me?

Fire:  Mount Doom -

What promises he made me!  What glories did he paint!  Power, and beauty … to create and not destroy, and to him I gave all I knew.

With my bones he built his towers, with my blood he washed them clean.  With my heat he shaped his people and with my breath he blankets them.  And then, a little boon … a bauble, he asks, to receive his power and keep us all. 

I was lawless, but I was free, then my own light blinded me.  A prison now his walls have made and that bauble merely the last link of chain.

Earth:  The Pelennor Fields -

What trees I have left they will uproot, and take away for lumber.  They will take the stones the mountains gave to me like jewels.  And in recompense?  They will entrust to me their fallen, both foul and fair.

They will rebuild, and though wounded and scarred I must but look to time for healing.

But I will receive their rotting corpses, their machines, and their ashes and make of them good soil.  They have not unearthed all my seeds, so many have I hidden deep.

From their dead I will bring forth life, 'til the Pelennor be green again.

Water:  The River Anduin -

I feel a shift in the Earth, hear the Fire’s joyful cackle, shiver as the Wind whispers her news:  an evil has vanished from the world.

Now Wind will bear me to Earth’s bed, and together we will bring forth new life to narrow my banks.  I deny them nothing; Greylin, Langwell, Sîr Ninglor, Celebrant, Limlaith, Onodló, Erui, Celos, Poros, Sirith, and even foul Morgulduin do I accept, taking likewise their treasures and trash and go on, unceaselessly changing, perpetual.

The Land, the Fire, and the Wind have rid themselves of evil;  I hear their joy, and do not care.

Thought:  Author's Notes

The title is from Tambourlaine The Great by Christopher Marlowe:

"Nature that fram’d us of four elements,
Warring within our breasts for regiment,
Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds."

"Greylin, Langwell, Sîr Ninglor, Celebrant, Limlaith, Onodló, Erui, Celos, Poros, Sirith, and even foul Morgulduin" - these are the major rivers and tributaries that flow to the Anduin.