What is your favourite passage from Tolkien's Legendarium?

There are too many to choose from! But one of my favourites has to be Merry's description of the Ents at Isengard.

First,

'Let me see,' said Merry: 'five nights ago-now we come to a part >of the story you know nothing about. We met Treebeard that >morning after the battle; and that night we were at Wellinghall, >one of his ent-houses. The next morning we went to Entmoot, a >gathering of Ents, that is, and the queerest thing I have ever seen >in my life. It lasted all that day and the next; and we spent the >nights with an Ent called Quickbeam. And then late in the >afternoon in the third day of their moot, the Ents suddenly blew >up. It was amazing. The Forest had felt as tense as if a >thunderstorm was brewing inside it: then all at once it exploded. I >wish you could have heard their song as they marched.'

'If Saruman had heard it, he would be a hundred miles away by >now, even if he had had to run on his own legs,' said Pippin.

'Though Isengard be strong and hard, as cold as stone and bare >as bone,

We go, we go, we go to war, to hew the stone and break the door!

There was very much more. A great deal of the song had no >words, and was like a music of horns and drums. It was very >exciting. But I thought it was only marching music and no more, >just a song - until I got here. I know better now.'

Then,

As soon as Saruman had sent off all his army, our turn came. >Treebeard put us down, and went up to the gates, and began >hammering on the doors, and calling for Saruman. There was no >answer, except arrows and stones from the walls. But arrows are >no use against Ents. They hurt them, of course, and infuriate >them: like stinging flies. But an Ent can be stuck as full of >orc-arrows as a pin-cushion, and take no serious harm. They >cannot be poisoned, for one thing; and their skin seems to be >very thick, and tougher than bark. It takes a very heavy >axe-stroke to wound them seriously. They don't like axes. But >there would have to be a great many axe-men to one Ent: a man >that hacks once at an Ent never gets a chance of a second blow. A >punch from an Ent-fist crumples up iron like thin tin.

'When Treebeard had got a few arrows in him, he began to warm >up, to get positively "hasty", as he would say. He let out a great >hoom-hom, and a dozen more Ents came striding up. An angry >Ent is terrifying. Their fingers, and their toes, just freeze on to >rock; and they tear it up like bread-crust. It was like watching the >work of great tree-roots in a hundred years, all packed into a few >moments.

'They pushed, pulled, tore, shook, and hammered; and >clang-bang, crash-crack, in five minutes they had these huge >gates just lying in ruin; and some were already beginning to eat >into the walls, like rabbits in a sand-pit. I don't know what >Saruman thought was happening; but anyway he did not know >how to deal with it.

/r/tolkienfans Thread