He stands not alone. You would die before your stroke fell.

Frodo drew himself up, and again Sam was startled by his words and his stern voice. 'On the Precious? How dare you?' he said. 'Think! Would you commit your promise to that, Smeagol? It will hold you. But it is more treacherous than you are. It may twist your words. Beware!

You can make the Ring into an allegory of our own time, if you like: and allegory of the inevitable fate that waits for all attempts to defeat evil power by power.

I wish I was at home in my nice hole by the fire, with the kettle just beginning to sing!

But Sauron was not of mortal flesh, and though he was robbed now of that shape in which had wrought so great an evil, so that he could never again appear fair to the eyes of Men, yet his spirit arose out of the deep and passed as a shadow and a black wind over the sea, and came back to Middle-earth and to Mordor that was his home. There he took up again his great Ring in Barad-dur, and dwelt there, dark and silent, until he wrought himself a new guise, an image of malice and hatred made visible; and the Eye of Sauron the Terrible few could endure.

Do not spoil the wonder with haste!

So it ends as I guessed it would,' his thoughts said, even as it fluttered away; and it laughed a little within him ere it fled, almost gay it seemed to be casting off all doubt and care and fear. And even as it winged away into forgetfulness it heard voices, and they seemed to be crying in some forgotten world far above: 'The eagles are coming! The eagles are coming!' For one moment more Pippin's thought hovered. "Bilbo! But no! That came in his tale, long long ago. This is my tale, and it ended now. Good-bye!' And his thought fled far away and his eyes saw no more.