A new age and antiquarian longings
After massive chaos and deep shattering of this world's pillars, we gaze at a new era, promising as we deem it and, hopefully, free and loose from the deadly chains of fear,
Because dread is harbinger of captivity for all decent souls of the earth, which are harmless and feeble, unable to resist and stoutly stand,
The First Enemy is gone for the good, we have been told, exiled and trapped in the prison of void and non-being, which is terrible fate for whom law tries to battle and useless render,
The ones who first were born, the immortal kind of the kindred of the mighty characters of the elder tales; they are to bring about the course of a newer story, and to set up the foundations of a purified continent they are well resolute in equal manner, although their spirit grew, we may say, antiquarian and much they yearn what they had in past ages forsaken, for the sake of their pure art and noble means.
Once the glorious yet somber First Age of Arda had eventually come to an end, the Elven kind was confident that new possibilities for redemption and magnificence were at hand. Most of the Eldar had been gently and strongly suggested to sail back to the Undying Lands, as the Valar had pardoned the perpetrators of the infamous kin-slaying and those who had taken the suffered path of sedition. And another fundamental fact was known by the divine intelligence of the westernmost lands: with Morgoth gone, the world could breathe a sigh of relief, but all the snares of the Evil and the poison that had been thitherto spread could not be erased completely from the annals of history. New menaces would later torment the people of the mortal ways; this the Regents of the World knew very well.
The majority of the Elves followed the advices of the Powers and returned to Eressëa, and then they were finally reunited with their relatives and friends within the realm of the Archangels. Some decided to remain in Middle-earth, though. Not for arrogance or negligence towards the opinion of the Valar, but because their love for the wild mortal world had grown too profound and ardent. There were some of them that had never dwelt in Aman in the first place; too hard would have been the parting from their beloved land. Those were the noble Noldor who elected to stay, in a continent full of ever-new chances of greatness and splendour, yet made dim by the constant uncertainty derived from the fear of evil forces. And these Elves and their superb arts grew antiquarian, for they started to perceive that Arda would rapidly change (prelude of the future dominion of Men) and thus longed to embalm the present as it was, halting the inexorable passing of time and its ill consequences. Their art was all about conservation and preservation; they hope to maintain what was created by their hands ever-young and untouched by decay. This was the prime issue in the mind of most Elves and a very insistent of a theme.
Therefore, some began to imagine an improbable scenario: that the world could be repaired and healed via their labours, to the point of recreating the forbidden bliss of the shires that lay beyond the seas. An impossible eventuality, but it's necessary that this be mentioned: many of them did not like the prospect of coming back to the immortal lands, for the Elven survivors of Middle-earth, amidst lesser Elves and Men, shone of a bright light of majesty and grandness. While, should they have returned to the West, they would have been at the bottom of the hierarchy, below the Maiar and the Kings and Queens whom the very Angels served. A pivotal theme in Tolkien's narration. Longings that would later be cunningly exploited by Sauron to sway the Elves towards his plans, as he did equally in regards of Númenor (even though the centre of the dispute was the yearning of immortality, in that case).