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More later, but in the midst of all the Maggot-Bombadil nostalgia, here is my favorite part from Bombadil Goes Boating:

Stars shone on Bamfurlong, and Maggot’s house was lighted;
Fire in the kitchen burned to welcome the benighted.

Maggot’s sons bowed at door, his daughters did they curtsy.
His wife brought tankards out for those that might be thirsty.
Songs they had and merry tales, the supping and the dancing;
Goodman Maggot there for all his belt was prancing,
Tom did a hornpipe when he was not quaffing,
Daughters did the Springle-ring, goodwife did the laughing.

When others went to bed in hay, fern or feather,
Close in the inglenook they laid their heads together,
Old Tom and Muddy-feet, swapping all the tidings
From Barrow-downs to Tower Hills: of walkings and of ridings;
Of wheat-ear and barley-corn, of sowing and of reaping;
Queer tales from Bree, and talk at smithy, mill and cheaping;
Rumours in whispering trees, south-wind in the larches,
Tall Watchers by the Ford, Shadows on the marches.
Old Maggot slept at last in chair beside the embers.
Ere dawn Tom was gone: as dreams one half remembers,
Some merry, some sad, and some of hidden warning.

These lines fill me with longing, and bring up MacDonald' s favorite quote from Novalis: "Life is no dream. But it ought to become one, and someday perhaps it will."