Just a bit AU in actual circumstance, but bear with us here!

Pippin’s Bad Poetry

The others waited huddled together, watching until Boromir and Aragorn dwindled into black specks in the whiteness. At length they too passed from sight. Time dragged on. The clouds lowered, and now a few flakes of snow came curling down again.

The four hobbits sat together, rubbing their frozen hands and frost-bitten feet trying to keep warm as Aragorn and Boromir attempted to plow their way through the gigantic snow-drifts that blocked their path. Gandalf and Gimli sat far behind them deeply engaged in guttural conversation while Legolas journeyed out over the snow drifts ‘in search of the Sun.’

Suddenly Pippin perked up. "There’s no sense in just sitting around being miserable," he said with a stab at cheerfulness. "Let’s compose poetry."

His friends merely looked at him. They were not in the right mood for such nonsense, and for all they cared at the moment Pippin could go soak his head, or bury himself in a snowdrift.

"What?" he asked indignantly. "You never complain when Legolas sings and recites."

"You, my friend," Merry pointed out deliberately, "are not Legolas."

"Well thank you kindly!" Pippin declared, somewhat miffed. "But you just wait; I’ll do it myself."

"You go ahead and do that," Merry muttered through his chattering teeth.

Throwing his friend a dirty look, Pippin began to think.

Silence reigned for a few more minutes, until the trio of hobbits was suddenly startled by Pippin’s jumping up. "I have it!" he shouted.

"What have you?" Merry growled, not really interested, but bored enough to listen.

"I’ve composed a part of my poem."

"Let’s hear is then, Mr. Pippin," Sam piped up.

"Alright, here we go. The Snow-Storm, composed by Peregrin Took."

"Why do you keep using that word," Frodo questioned, looking curiously up at his cousin.

Pippin, his arm still in the air in the poet’s pose, looked down at his friend still huddled on the ground. "What word?"

"Compose. You’ve used it several times already. Why not written, or authored or just plain by?"

"I’m not writing."

Merry glanced over at his companion. "Is ‘authored’ a word?" he asked, incredulously.

"Yes, but it is not used very often, save by Bilbo, who employed it extensively."

"Forget about that, you two," Pippin commanded, his hands on his hips. "Let me recite my poem!"

"Alright, fine. Go ahead and recite, Pip," Merry said, motioning the younger hobbit on.

Pippin once again struck the poet’s pose, arm extended, hand held in front of his face, his eyes half closed, his other hand held cupped at waist level. Merry grinned and tried not to snicker.

"The Snow-Storm, authored by Peregrin Took," he began, feeling rather grand.

"Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,

Arrives the snow, and, driving o’er the fields,

Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air

Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,

And veils the farmhouse at the garden’s end."

"That doesn’t rhyme, Pippin," Frodo interrupted, just as Pippin opened his mouth to begin the next stanza.

"It’s not supposed to rhyme, Frodo. I’m using figures of speech. Didn’t you ever learn about that in school?"

"I did," Merry admitted with disgust, "but it sounds bloody awful, if you want my opinion. Legolas, at least, knows how to rhyme."

"I don’t want your opinion," Pippin stated, hands once more on his hips.

"Fine then; don’t listen to me. Carry on, by all means."

Pippin once again cleared his throat and pulled out the poet’s pose, although his arms were held rather rigid this time.

"Come see the north wind’s masonry.

Out of an unseen quarry evermore

Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer . . . umm . . .

Curves his white bastions with projected roof

Round every windward stake, or tree, or door."

Gimli, who up to that time had not bothered to listen, suddenly interrupted. "That does not rhyme."

Pippin, stopped, his face held tightly in a smile. "It’s not supposed to rhyme," he explained in a strained voice. "I’m using figures of speech."

"Mmph," the dwarf replied gruffly.

"May I continue?" Pippin asked rather sullenly. Receiving noncommittal acknowledgment, he steeled himself to go on, but another voice – far fairer – cut him short yet again.

"Well," cried Legolas as he ran up, "I have not brought the Sun. She is walking in the blue fields of the South, and a little wreath of snow on this Redhorn hillock troubles her not at all. But I have brought back a gleam of hope for those who are doomed to go on feet. There is the greatest wind-drift of all just beyond the turn, and there our Strong Men were almost buried. They despaired, until I returned and told them that the drift was little wider than a wall. And on the other side the snow suddenly grows less, while further down it is no more than a white coverlet to cool a hobbit’s toes."

"Ah, it is as I said," growled Gimli. "It was no ordinary storm. It is the ill will of Caradhras. He does not love Elves and Dwarves, and that drift was laid to cut off our escape."

"Well, for the love of a hobbit, may I kindly complete my poem?!" Pippin demanded, rather indignant at having been interrupted and well-nigh forgotten.

Gimli grumbled to himself, and Frodo could have sworn Gandalf rolled his eyes, but Legolas seemed mildly interested. "Forgive me, Pippin," he said kindly. "Do continue. You yet have time before our Men join us again."

"Thank you."

"Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work

So fanciful, so savage, naught cared he

For number or proportion. Mockingly,

On coop or kennel he hangs marble wreaths . . . uhh . . .

A swanlike form invests the hidden thorn;

Fills up the farmer’s lane from wall to wall,

Mauger the farmer’s sighs; . . . um . . . and at the gate

A tapering turret overtops the work.

And when his hours are numbered, and the world

Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,

Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art

To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,

Built in an age, the mad wind’s nightwork,

The frolic architecture of the snow."

So finishing, Pippin, with a rather smug and self-satisfied smile, took a bow, only to be lauded by slow, sarcastic applause from Merry. "Wonderful, Pip. Just beautiful. You captured everything so very exquisitely," he stated dryly, the tone of his voice not even hinting at the praise given.

Legolas, who had until that time merely stood quietly listening, now ventured his soft-spoken comments. "Well said, young Pippin; you truly capture the mood by the manner in which you recite, and it was adulatory for you to have composed it at but a moment’s notice. But, ah . . . it did not rhyme."

Merry, who at last could hold out no longer, burst out laughing. The flat look on Pippin’s face was priceless. Sam, trying to be polite, forced the smile off his face, but his laughter was showing through as he tried to say, "Very nice, Mr. Pippin. You certainly have a way with words."

"Have we missed something?" Boromir inquired breathlessly, approaching with Aragorn.

Frodo grinned and snickered, causing Sam to loose control of his mirth and join Merry in hysterical laughter. Their hilarity was caused not wholly by Pippin’s sad try at poetry, but it also bordered on absolute hysteria after the long weeks they had endured.

Once they recovered, they all felt better (all except Pippin) and were ready for the march back down the mountain.

~ * ~

The incident was never fully forgotten by any in the Fellowship, but most especially not by Pippin, who had committed the "poem" to memory. He later sold the piece in Gondor for a modest sum under the name Ralph Waldo Emerson. It was then passed down generation to generation and we are able to treasure it still today.

A/N I came up with the idea for this story in school. I had to read several poems aloud in Literature (one of which was The Snow-Storm by Emerson); my brother and I both decided that this was one bad piece of poetry. So I thought I’d give it to Pippin.

I’ve only changed one word in it. When Pippin says "marble wreathes" it’s supposed to be "Parian wreaths," but since they no doubt didn’t know what a Parian wreath was, I decided to change it.

artificer - a skillful worker

mauger - in spite of

Parian - marble; Parso was an island in the Mediterranean noted for its beautiful marble.