The road wound ever on and on
Out from his round, green door,
And Bilbo Baggins took the paths
That few had walked before.
His tale is told in song and book,
And men in every land admire
The courage and the kind, good heart
Of Bilbo of the Shire.

A wizard knocking on his door
Changed Bilbo’s life for good.
And soon this former homebody
Was tromping through the woods.
He battled orcs, escaped from wargs,
Upon an eagle fled a fire.
But it was riddles in the dark
Bound Bilbo of the Shire.

An older hobbit, short in height,
He’d lived a quiet life.
The only blades his small hands knew
Were shears and kitchen knife.
And yet he learned to wield the blade
Of Sting, which burned with a blue fire.
Soon Thorin’s dwarves, who’d scoffed at him,
Loved Bilbo of the Shire.

He fought the spiders of Mirkwood,
Sliced through their webs with Sting.
He helped the dwarves escape the elves
By putting on his ring.
He stole into the lair of Smaug,
Helped save Dale from it’s burning pyre.
The Arkenstone a treaty made
By Bilbo of the Shire.

Returning home to hearth and pipe
He thought his journeys done.
He settled down to write his book
Raise cousin Drogo’s son.
A happy life… and yet a shade
Attached itself by unseen wire…
A Power unlocked from where it lay…
By Bilbo of the Shire.

The long expected party came
Eleventy-one years;
And feeling stretched while teasing guests –
POP! Bilbo disappears!
To Rivendell to see the elves
Where finally he would retire.
Just one more journey left to take
For Bilbo of the Shire.

But setting off to Rivendell
He did a fateful thing:
A deed no one else had achieved —
Bilbo gave up the ring.
Heroic deeds to Frodo fell,
But to this one we should aspire —
To know when to let some things go…
Like Bilbo of the Shire.