For W.H.A.

For W.H.A. is a poem written by J.R.R. Tolkien in parallel Old and Modern English. The poem is a "tardy tribute and token of thanks" to W.H. Auden, on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday and to mirror Auden's "A Short Ode to a Philologist" published in English and Medieval Studies Presented to J.R.R. Tolkien on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday (George Allen & Unwin, 1962).

"For W.H.A." was first published in 1967 within Shenandoah: The Washington and Lee University Review Vol. 18 No. 2.

Tolkien signed off the poem using an Old English form of his name, "Rægnold Hrædmóding".

Excerpt

 
These lines about you I linked together,
though weighted by years, Wystan my friend:
a tardy tribute and token of thanks

See also

• Poems by J.R.R. Tolkien