One of my favourite of all the poems in Tolkien's work is Bilbo's Walking Song. It is simple and homely, a little sentimental, and a nice metaphor for life with all its dangers and rewards. Old age and death appears a comforting thing after a long and tiring journey down the "Road" of life, to come at last to the "lighted inn" and sleep. The poem appears first in 'The Last Stage' at the end of The Hobbit.

            Roads go ever ever on,
                  Over rock and under tree,
            By caves where never sun has shone,
                  By streams that never find the sea;
            Over snow by winter sown,
                  And through the merry flowers of June,
            Over grass and over stone,
                  And under mountains in the moon.

            Roads go ever ever on
                  Under cloud and under star,
            Yet feet that wandering have gone
                  Turn at last to home afar.
            Eyes that fire and sword have seen
                  And horror in the halls of stone
            Look at last on meadows green
                  And trees and hills they long have known.

This is the poem in The Lord of the Rings:

            The Road goes ever on and on
                  Down from the door where it began.
            Now far ahead the Road has gone,
                  And I must follow, if I can,
            Pursuing it with eager feet,
                  Until it joins some larger way
            Where many paths and errands meet.
                  And whither then? I cannot say.

            The Road goes ever on and on
                  Out from the door where it began.
            Now far ahead the Road has gone,
                  Let others follow it who can!
            Let them a journey new begin,
                  But I at last with weary feet
            Will turn towards the lighted inn,
                  My evening-rest and sleep to meet.

This first verse is sung by Bilbo as he leaves Bag Eng after his Birthday Party in 'A Long Expected Party'. Frodo also sings it in 'Three is Company', except that he substitutes "weary feet" for "eager feet". Sam comments that it sounds like one of Bilbo's rhymes, and Frodo replies that "it came to me then, as if I was making it up, but I may have heard it long ago. Certainly it reminds me very much of Bilbo in the last years, before he went away. He used often to say there was only one Road; that it was like a great river: its springs were at every doorstep, and every path was its tributary. 'It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door,' he used to say. 'You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.'"

Bilbo sings the second verse to the hobbits in 'Many Partings' when they return to see him in Rivendell. Later on, at Gray Havens, "Frodo was singing softly to himself, singing the old walking-song, but the words were not quite the same:

            Still round the corner there may wait
                  A new road or a secret gate,
            And though I oft have passed them by,
                  A day will come at last when I
            Shall take the hidden paths that run
                  West of the Moon, East of the Sun.

In fact, these words are from another walking song by Bilbo which the hobbits sing in 'Three is Company'.