A/N:  This was mostly written by a friend of mine called Leia Chick and it was originally written as "Leia's Lament", after that princess from Star Wars lost her homeworld.  As I read it, it sounded so strongly like Frodo's grief upon returning to the Shire that she allowed me to use it for him also with a few changes.

Frodo's Lament

I cannot cry, though I am dying inside

I wish to mourn, but my mind is numb and worn

I’m expected to show strength, through grief as my spirit lies broken and weak

To the universe I want to yell, but I cannot, only inside does it echo endlessly

My heart screams out in pain - my beautiful, exceptional world lost in vain

What could I have done beside what I had already set out to do?

How can I bear such as loss? Why must it have rendered such a cost?

In shock, I’m left to stare out at the torn landscape

How could I have known such an unfathomable fate on it would fall?

So devastating, so unreal, so unjust

The very thing I set out to prevent

Where is one to care, to share, to understand how I feel, to trust?

Sam knows and takes my hand, the maimed one

Merry takes the other

I feel Pippin’s caring gaze, his desire like mine,

that I had a third hand he could hold

I don’t quite know the next step to take;

it’s so hard to focus and contemplate

I sit in despair, while most of the world is yet unaware

Their lives proceed the same, while mine is forever changed

Sam, my cousins, I want you to hold me like you did

Tell me not to give up, that everything will be all right,

that wounds heal with time.

But when will mine, when will yours?

I want you to tell me that out of tragedy comes good, but I fear not in this there could

I did what I thought best

But none can ever replace...Will I just live with this empty, empty space?

With a composed air, and duty first, I know,

 while this lonely, silent sorrow does not show

My life must press on for all that’s right, and find a purpose to justify such a sacrifice

But right now, let me be selfish

Only lay down to sleep, to bring my soul ease