[davem]

Flicking back through the chapter I noticed the following incident:

Sam was silent, deep in his memories. Presently he became aware that 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.
And as if in answer, from down below, coming up the road out of the valley, voices sang:
A! Elbereth Gilthoniel!
silivren penna miriel
o menel aglar elenath,
Gilthoniel, A! Elbereth!
We still remember, we who dwell
In this far land beneath the trees
The starlight on the Western Seas.

The two songs are virtually identical in the yearning they express, yet Frodo's song looks forward to a day when he will take those 'hidden paths', while the Elves hymn looks backward, it is all about remembrance of things past. It seems that for all his 'Elvishness' Frodo is still mortal, still looks to the future. There is still something of the adventurer in Frodo. For the Elves, though, all there is is memory, the past. Frodo's tragedy is that the only place he can find healing is a place where there is no future. Yet what his song also expresses is his restlessness, his inability to settle. Perhaps the idea of the Quest, the journey, has become ingrained in him. Like his uncle he cannot settle, & interestingly neither could Gollum. Its rather as if that is an effect of the Ring - once you've possessed it you seem unable to rest. Even Sam is affected:

There still he stood far into the night, hearing only the sigh and murmur of the waves on the shores of Middle-earth, and the sound of them sank deep into his heart.

This is not simply an 'Elvish' yearning for the Undying Lands across the Sea - though Sam will one day set sail into the West. Of course, all the four returning Hobbits are known as 'The Travellers', & I'd say that's not simply because they have travelled, but because they are now different. Certainly none of them will remain in the Shire till they die. It seems that once you step outside the bounds of the Shire you can never really return permanently. Sam, Merry & Pippin are not as deeply affected by their journeys as Frodo is by his, yet its as true for them as it is for him that there is no real going back. Mortals can never 'go back'.