Jesse - love your post and the reading responses it has received. First - off the main point - I always loved "Stairway to Heaven" because I always felt it was entirely about Galadriel - full of wonderfully veiled referrences that only Tolkien lovers would "get" while masquerading as a popular rock hit. A re-working of the song she sings as the Fellowship leaves Lorien and after she has resisted the temptation of the Ring "what ship would bear me ever back across so wide a sea?" This now brings me to my real point: Besides loving the story and Tolkien's ability I have been affected by Tolkien's poetry. Ever since my first reading (in 1975)I found myself easily memorizing various "songs" from the book. Have you ever heard the album made by Donald Swann? Several of the poems are put to music; lovely, old-fashioned, single piano, non-technical melodies that evoke just the right tone. Besides that you get Tolkien himself speaking both an Elvish "prayer" and reading "Tom Bombadil".

Whenever I walk in the woods (I go backpacking a lot) or even if I'm just out under a moonlit or starlit sky I find myself chanting his poetry. And yeah, I DO get a feeling looking at sunsets that comes directly from the idea of "the West". Or on a beach when you see a tiny sail way out there -is it Frodo? And - I know this sounds corny - when the stress of life builds up or some horrible thing happens, I'm able to think of Sam in the Tower of Cirith Ungol when all seemed lost, and that he sings to himself "I will not say the day is done, nor bid the stars farewell".

And finally, I never thought of trees as really living things until I met Ents. Like Legolas on the edge of Lothlorien I explore even the bark of trees, touching it to feel its breathing.

In every wood, in every Spring, there is a different green.