Текст книги "The Book of Lost Tales, Part One"

Автор книги: John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

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In another place Angol is given as the Gnomish equivalent of Eriollo, which names are said to be those of ‘the region of the northern part of the Great Lands, “between the seas”, whence Eriol came’. (On these names see further under Eriol in the Appendix on Names.)

It is not to be thought that these notes represent in all respects the story of Eriol as my father conceived it when he wrote The Cottage of Lost Play—in any case, it is said expressly there that Eriol means ‘One who dreams alone’, and that ‘of his former names the story nowhere tells’ (p. 14). But what is important is that (according to the view that I have formed of the earliest conceptions, apparently the best explanation of the very difficult evidence) this was still the leading idea when it was written: Eriol came to Tol Eressлa from the lands to the East of the North Sea. He belongs to the period preceding the Anglo-Saxon invasions of Britain (as my father, for his purposes, wished to represent it).

Later, his name changed to Жlfwine (‘Elf-friend’), the mariner became an Englishman of the ‘Anglo-Saxon period’ of English history, who sailed west over sea to Tol Eressлa—he sailed from England out into the Atlantic Ocean; and from this later conception comes the very remarkable story of Жlfwine of England, which will be given at the end of the Lost Tales. But in the earliest conception he was not an Englishman of England: England in the sense of the land of the English did not yet exist; for the cardinal fact (made quite explicit in extant notes) of1 this conception is that the Elvish isle to which Eriol came was England—that is to say, Tol Eressлa would become England, the land of the English, at the end of the story. Koromas or Kortirion, the town in the centre of Tol Eressлa to which Eriol comes in The Cottage of Lost Play, would become in after days Warwick (and the elements Kor– and War– were etymologically connected);* Alalminуrл, the Land of Elms, would be Warwickshire; and Tavrobel, where Eriol sojourned for a while in Tol Eressлa, would afterwards be the Staffordshire village of Great Haywood.

None of this is explicit in the written Tales, and is only found in notes independent of them; but it seems certain that it was still present when The Cottage of Lost Play was written (and indeed, as I shall try to show later, underlies all the Tales). The fair copy that my mother made of it was dated February 1917. From 1913 until her marriage in March 1916 she lived in Warwick and my father visited her there from Oxford; after their marriage she lived for a while at Great Haywood (east of Stafford), since it was near the camp where my father was stationed, and after his return from France he was at Great Haywood in the winter of 1916–17. Thus the identification of Tol Eressлan Tavrobel with Great Haywood cannot be earlier than 1916, and the fair copy of The Cottage of Lost Play (and quite possibly the original composition of it) was actually done there.

In November 1915 my father wrote a poem entitled Kortirion among the Trees which was dedicated to Warwick.† To the first fair copy of the poem there is appended a prose introduction, as follows:

Now on a time the fairies dwelt in the Lonely Isle after the great wars with Melko and the ruin of Gondolin; and they builded a fair city amid-most of that island, and it was girt with trees. Now this city they called Kortirion, both in memory of their ancient dwelling of Kфr in Valinor, and because this city stood also upon a hill and had a great tower tall and grey that Ingil son of Inwл their lord let raise.

Very beautiful was Kortirion and the fairies loved it, and it became rich in song and poesy and the light of laughter; but on a time the great Faring Forth was made, and the fairies had rekindled once more the Magic Sun of Valinor but for the treason and faint hearts of Men. But so it is that the Magic Sun is dead and the Lonely Isle drawn back unto the confines of the Great Lands, and the fairies are scattered through all the wide unfriendly pathways of the world; and now Men dwell even on this faded isle, and care nought or know nought of its ancient days. Yet still there be some of the Eldar and the Noldoli‡ of old who linger in the island, and their songs are heard about the shores of the land that once was the fairest dwelling of the immortal folk.

And it seems to the fairies and it seems to me who know that town and have often trodden its disfigured ways that autumn and the falling of the leaf is the season of the year when maybe here or there a heart among Men may be open, and an eye perceive how is the world’s estate fallen from the laughter and the loveliness of old. Think on Kortirion and be sad—yet is there not hope?

Both h1ere and in The Cottage of Lost Play there are allusions to events still in the future when Eriol came to Tol Eressлa; and though the full exposition and discussion of them must wait until the end of the Tales it needs to be explained here that ‘the Faring Forth’ was a great expedition made from Tol Eressлa for the rescue of the Elves who were still wandering in the Great Lands—cf. Lindo’s words (p. 17): ‘until such time as they fare forth to find the lost families of the kindred’. At that time Tol Eressлa was uprooted, by the aid of Ulmo, from the sea-bottom and dragged near to the western shores of the Great Lands. In the battle that followed the Elves were defeated, and fled into hiding in Tol Eressлa; Men entered the isle, and the fading of the Elves began. The subsequent history of Tol Eressлa is the history of England; and Warwick is ‘disfigured Kortirion’, itself a memory of ancient Kфr (the later Tirion upon Tъna, city of the Elves in Aman; in the Lost Tales the name Kфr is used both of the city and the hill).

Inwл, referred to in The Cottage of Lost Play as ‘King of all the Eldar when they dwelt in Kфr’, is the forerunner of Ingwл King of the Vanyar Elves in The Silmarillion. In a story told later to Eriol in Tol Eressлa Inwл reappears as one of the three Elves who went first to Valinor after the Awakening, as was Ingwл in The Silmarillion; his kindred and descendants were the Inwir, of whom came Meril-i-Turinqi, the Lady of Tol Eressлa (see p. 50). Lindo’s references to Inwл’s hearing ‘the lament of the world’ (i.e. of the Great Lands) and to his leading the Eldar forth to the lands of Men (p. 16) are the germ of the story of the coming of the Hosts of the West to the assault on Thangorodrim: ‘The host of the Valar prepared for battle; and beneath their white banners marched the Vanyar, the people of Ingwл…’ (The Silmarillion, p. 251). Later in the Tales it is said to Eriol by Meril-i-Turinqi that ‘Inwл was the eldest of the Elves, and had lived yet in majesty had he not perished in that march into the world; but Ingil his son went long ago back to Valinor and is with Manwл’. In The Silmarillion, on the other hand, it is said of Ingwл that ‘he entered into Valinor [in the beginning of the days of the Elves] and sits at the feet of the Powers, and all Elves revere his name; but he came never back, nor looked again upon Middle-earth’ (p. 53).

Lindo’s words about the sojourn of Ingil in Tol Eressлa ‘after many days’, and the interpretation of the name of his town Koromas as ‘the Resting of the Exiles of Kфr’, refer to the return of the Eldar from the Great Lands after the war on Melko (Melkor, Morgoth) for the deliverance of the enslaved Noldoli. His words about his father Valwл ‘who went with Noldorin to find the Gnomes’ refer to an element in this story of the expedition from Kфr.*

It is important to see, then, that (if my general interpretation is correct) in The Cottage of Lost Play Eriol comes to Tol Eressлa in the time after the Fall of Gondolin and the march of the Elves of Kфr into the Great Lands for the defeat of Melko, when the Elves who had taken part in it had returned over the sea to dwell in Tol Eressлa; but before the time of the ‘Faring Forth’ and the removal of Tol Eressлa to the geographical position of England. This latter element was soon lost in its entirety from the developing mythology.

1 Of the ‘Cottage’ itself it must be said at once that very little light can be cast on it from other writings of my father’s; for the entire conception of the Children who went to Valinor was to be abandoned almost without further trace. Later in the Lost Tales, however, there are again references to Olуre Mallл. After the description of the Hiding of Valinor, it is told that at the bidding of Manwл (who looked on the event with sorrow) the Valar Oromл and Lуrien devised strange paths from the Great Lands to Valinor, and the way of Lуrien’s devising was Olуrл Mallл the Path of Dreams; by this road, when ‘Men were yet but new-wakened on the earth’, ‘the children of the fathers of the fathers of Men’ came to Valinor in their sleep (pp. 211, 213). There are two further mentions in tales to be given in Part II: the teller of the Tale of Tinъviel (a child of Mar Vanwa Tyaliйva) says that she saw Tinъviel and her mother with her own eyes ‘when journeying by the Way of Dreams in long past days’, and the teller of the Tale of Turambar says that he ‘trod Olуrл Mallл in the days before the fall of Gondolin’.

There is also a poem on the subject of the Cottage of Lost Play, which has many of the details of the description in the prose text. This poem, according to my father’s notes, was composed at 59 St John’s Street, Oxford, his undergraduate lodgings, on 27–28 April 1915 (when he was 23). It exists (as is constantly the case with the poems) in several versions, each modified in detail from the preceding one, and the end of the poem was twice entirely rewritten. I give it here first in the earliest form, with changes made to this in notes at the foot of the page, and then in the final version, the date of which cannot be certainly determined. I suspect that it was very much later—and may indeed have been one of the revisions made to old poems when the collection The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (1962) was being prepared, though it is not mentioned in my father’s correspondence on that subject.

The original title was: You and Me / and the Cottage of Lost Play (with an Old English rendering Pжt hъsincel gamenes), which was changed to Mar Vanwa Tyaliйva, The Cottage of Lost Play; in the final version it is The Little House of Lost Play: Mar Vanwa Tyaliйva. The verse-lines are indented as in the original texts.

You & Me

and the Cottage of Lost Play

You and me^*—we know that land

And often have been there In the long old days, old nursery days,^*

A dark child and a fair. 5

Was it down the paths of firelight dreams

In winter cold and white, Or in the blue-spun twilit hours

Of little early tucked-up beds

In drowsy summer night, 10

That You and I got lost in Sleep

And met each other there– Your dark hair on your white nightgown,

And mine was tangled fair? We wandered shyly hand in hand,

15

Or rollicked in the fairy sand^* And gathered pearls and shells in pails,

While all about the nightingales Were singing in the trees. We dug for silver with our spades

20

By little inland sparkling seas, Then ran ashore through sleepy glades

And down a warm and winding lane We never never found again^* Between high whispering trees. 25

The air was neither night or day,^*

But faintly dark with softest light, When first there glimmered into sight

The Cottage of Lost Play. ’Twas builded very very old^*

30

White, and thatched with straws of gold, And pierced with peeping lattices That looked toward the sea;

And our own children’s garden-plots

Were there—our own forgetmenots,

35

Red daisies, cress and mustard, And blue nemophilл. O! all the borders^* trimmed with box

Were full of favourite flowers—of phlox,

Of larkspur, pinks, and hollyhocks

40

Beneath a red may-tree: And all the paths were full of shapes,

Of tumbling happy white-clad shapes,

And with them You and Me.^* And some had silver watering-cans

45

And watered all their gowns, Or sprayed each other; some laid plans

To build them houses, fairy towns,^* Or dwellings in the trees; And some were clambering on the roof;

50

Some crooning lonely and aloof; And some were dancing fairy-rings

And weaving pearly daisy-strings, Or chasing golden bees; But here and there a little pair

55

With rosy cheeks and tangled hair

Debated quaint old childish things^*—* And we were one of these.

Lines 58–65 (p. 30) were subsequently rewritten:

But why it was there came a time

When we could take the road no more,

Though long we looked, and high would climb, Or gaze from many a seaward shore To find the path between sea and sky

To those old gardens of delight; And how it goes now in that land,

If there the house and gardens stand, Still filled with children clad in white– We know not, You and I. And why it was Tomorrow came

And with his grey hand led us back; 60

And why we never found the same

Old cottage, or the magic track That leads between a silver sea^*1 And those old shores^* and gardens fair

Where all things are, that ever were—

65

We know not, You and Me.^*

This is the final version of the poem:

The Little House of Lost Play

Mar Vanwa Tyali й va

We knew that land once, You and I,

and once we wandered there in the long days now long gone by,

a dark child and a fair. 5

Was it on the paths of firelight thought

in winter cold and white, or in the blue-spun twilit hours

of little early tucked-up beds

in drowsy summer night, 10

that you and I in Sleep went down

to meet each other there, your dark hair on your white nightgown

and mine was tangled fair?

We wandered shyly hand in hand,

15

small footprints in the golden sand,

and gathered pearls and shells in pails,

while all about the nightingales

were singing in the trees. We dug for silver with our spades,

20

and caught the sparkle of the seas,

then ran ashore to greenlit glades,

and found the warm and winding lane

that now we cannot find again,

between tall whispering trees.

25

The air was neither night nor day,

an ever-eve of gloaming light,

when first there glimmered into sight

the Little House of Play. New-built it was, yet very old,

30

white, and thatched with straws of gold,

and pierced with peeping lattices that looked toward the sea; and our own children’s garden-plots

were there: our own forgetmenots,

35

red daisies, cress and mustard,

and radishes for tea. There all the borders, trimmed with box,

were filled with favourite flowers, with phlox,

with lupins, pinks, and hollyhocks,

40

beneath a red may-tree; and all the gardens full of folk

that their own little language spoke,

but not to You and Me.

For some had silver watering-cans

45

and watered all their gowns, or sprayed each other; some laid plans

to build their houses, little towns

and dwellings in the trees. And some were clambering on the roof;

50

some crooning lonely and aloof;

some dancing round the fairy-rings

all garlanded in daisy-strings,

while some upon their knees before a little white-robed king

55

crowned with marigold would sing

their rhymes of long ago. But side by side a little pair

with heads together, mingled hair,

went walking to and fro 60

still hand in hand; and what they said,

ere Waking far apart them led,

that only we now know.

It is notable that the poem was called The Cottage, or The Little House of Lost Play, whereas what is described is the Cottage of the Children in Valinor, near the city of Kфr; but this, according to Vairл (p. 19), ‘the Cottage of the Play of Sleep’, was ‘not of Lost Play, as has wrongly been said in song among Men’.

I shall not attempt any analysis or offer any elucidation of the ideas embodied in the ‘Cottages of the Children’. The reader, however he interprets them, will in any case not need to be assisted in his perception of the personal and particular emotions in which all was still anchored.

As I have said, the conception of the coming of mortal children in sleep to the gardens of Valinor was soon to be abandoned in its entirety, and in the developed mythology there would be no place for it—still less for the idea that in some possible future day ‘the roads through Arvalin to Valinor shall be thronged with the sons and daughters of Men’.

Likewise, all the ‘elfin’ diminutiveness soon disappeared. The idea of the Cottage of the Children was already in being in 1915, as the poem You and Me shows; and it was in the same year, indeed on the same days of April, that Goblin Feet (or Cumaю юб Ni1htielfas) was written, concerning which my father said in 1971: ‘I wish the unhappy little thing, representing all that I came (so soon after) to fervently dislike, could be buried for ever.’* Yet it is to be observed that in early notes Elves and Men are said to have been ‘of a size’ in former days, and the smallness (and filminess and transparency) of the ‘fairies’ is an aspect of their ‘fading’, and directly related to the domination of Men in the Great Lands. To this matter I shall return later. In this connection, the diminutiveness of the Cottage is very strange, since it seems to be a diminutiveness peculiar to itself: Eriol, who has travelled for many days through Tol Eressлa, is astonished that the dwelling can hold so many, and he is told that all who enter it must be, or must become, very small. But Tol Eressлa is an island inhabited by Elves.

I give now three texts of the poem Kortirion among the Trees (later The Trees of Kortirion). The very earliest workings (November 1915) of this poem are extant,† and there are many subsequent texts. The prose introduction to the early form has been cited on pp. 25–6. A major revision was made in 1937, and another much later; by this time it was almost a different poem. Since my father sent it to Rayner Unwin in February 1962 as a possible candidate for inclusion in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, it seems virtually certain that the final version dates from that time.‡

I give the poem first in its pre-1937 form, when only slight changes had yet been made. In one of the earliest copies it bears a title in Old English: Cor Tirion p ra bйama on middes, and is ‘dedicated to Warwick’ but in another the second title is in Elvish (the second word is not perfectly legible): Narquelion la..tu y aldalin Kortirionwen (i.e. ‘Autumn (among) the trees of Kortirion’).

Kortirion among the Trees

The First Verses

O fading town upon a little hill,

Old memory is waning in thine ancient gates, The robe gone gray, thine old heart almost still;

The castle only, frowning, ever waits 5

And ponders how among the towering elms

The Gliding Water leaves these inland realms

And slips between long meadows to the western sea– Still bearing downward over murmurous falls

One year and then another to the sea; 10

And slowly thither have a many gone

Since first the fairies built Kortirion.

O spiry town upon a windy hill

With sudden-winding alleys shady-walled (Where even now the peacocks pace a stately drill,

15

Majestic, sapphirine, and emerald), Behold thy girdle of a wide champain

Sunlit, and watered with a silver rain,

And richly wooded with a thousand whispering trees That cast long shadows in many a bygone noon,

20

And murmured many centuries in the breeze. Thou art the city of the Land of Elms,

Alalminуrл in the Faery Realms.

Sing of thy trees, old, old Kortirion! Thine oaks, and maples with their tassels on, 25

Thy singing poplars; and the splendid yews That crown thine agйd walls and muse Of sombre grandeur all the day– Until the twinkle of the early stars Is tangled palely in their sable bars; 30

Until the seven lampads of the Silver Bear Swing slowly in their shrouded hair And diadem the fallen day. O tower and citadel of the world! When bannered summer is unfurled 35

Most full of music are thine elms– A gathered sound that overwhelms The voices of all other trees. Sing then of elms, belov’d Kortirion, How summer crowds their full sails on, 40

Like clothйd masts of verdurous ships, A fleet of galleons that proudly slips Across long sunlit seas. The Second Verses

Thou art the inmost province of the fading isle

Where linger yet the Lonely Companies. 45

Still, undespairing, do they sometimes slowly file

Along thy paths with plaintive harmonies: The holy fairies and immortal elves

That dance among the trees and sing themselves

A wistful song of things that were, and could be yet. 50

They pass and vanish in a sudden breeze,

A wave of bowing grass—and we forget Their tender voices like wind-shaken bells

Of flowers, their gleaming hair like golden asphodels.

Spring still hath joy: thy spring is ever fair

55

Among the trees; but drowsy summer by thy streams Already stoops to hear the secret player

Pipe out beyond the tangle of her forest dreams The long thin tune that still do sing

The elvish harebells nodding in a jacinth ring

60

Upon the castle walls; Already stoops to listen to the clear cold spell

Come up her sunny aisles and perfumed halls: A sad and haunting magic note,

A strand of silver glass remote.

65

Then all thy trees, old town upon a windy bent,

Do loose a long sad whisper and lament;

For going are the rich-hued hours, th’enchanted nights

When flitting ghost-moths dance like satellites

Round tapers in the moveless air; 70

And doomed already are the radiant dawns,

The fingered sunlight dripping on long lawns;

The odour and the slumbrous noise of meads,

When all the sorrel, flowers, and plumйd weeds

Go down before the scyther’s share. 75

Strange sad October robes her dewy furze

In netted sheen of gold-shot gossamers,

And then the wide-umbraged elm begins to fail;

Her mourning multitudes of leaves go pale

Seeing afar the icy shears 80

Of Winter, and his blue-tipped spears Marching unconquerable upon the sun

Of bright All-Hallows. Then their hour is done,

And wanly borne on wings of amber pale

They beat the wide airs of the fading vale

85

And fly like birds across the misty meres. The Third Verses

Yet is this season dearest to my heart,

Most fitting to the little faded town With sense of splendid pomps that now depart

In mellow sounds of sadness echoing down 90

The paths of stranded mists. O! gentle time

When the late mornings are bejewelled with rime,

And the blue shadows gather on the distant woods. The fairies know thy early crystal dusk

And put in secret on their twilit hoods 95

Of grey and filmy purple, and long bands

Of frosted starlight sewn by silver hands.

They know the season of the brilliant night,

When naked elms entwine in cloudy lace The Pleiades, and long-armed poplars bar the light

100

Of golden-rondured moons with glorious face. O fading fairies and most lonely elves

Then sing ye, sing ye to yourselves

A woven song of stars and gleaming leaves; Then whirl ye with the sapphire-wingйd winds;

105

Then do ye pipe and call with heart that grieves To sombre men: ‘Remember what is gone—

The magic sun that lit Kortirion!’

Now are thy trees, old, old Kortirion, Seen rising up through pallid mists and wan, 110

Like vessels floating vague and long afar Down opal seas beyond the shadowy bar Of cloudy ports forlorn: They leave behind for ever havens throng’d Wherein their crews a while held feasting long 115

And gorgeous ease, who now like windy ghosts Are wafted by slow airs to empty coasts; There are they sadly glimmering borne Across the plumbless ocean of oblivion. Bare are thy trees become, Kortirion, 120

And all their summer glory swiftly gone. The seven lampads of the Silver Bear Are waxen to a wondrous flare That flames above the fallen year. Though cold thy windy squares and empty streets; 125

Though elves dance seldom in thy pale retreats (Save on some rare and moonlit night, A flash, a whispering glint of white), Yet would I never need depart from here. The Last Verse

I need not know the desert or red palaces

130

Where dwells the sun, the great seas or the magic isles, The pinewoods piled on mountain-terraces;

And calling faintly down the windy miles Touches my heart no distant bell that rings

In populous cities of the Earthly Kings.

135

Here do I find a haunting ever-near content Set midmost of the Land of withered Elms

(Alalminуrл of the Faery Realms);

Here circling slowly in a sweet lament Linger the holy fairies and immortal elves

140

Singing a song of faded longing to themselves.

I give next the text of the poem as my father rewrote it in 1937, in the later of slightly variant forms.

Kortirion among the Trees

I

O fading town upon an inland hill,

Old shadows linger in thine ancient gate, Thy robe is grey, thine old heart now is still;

Thy towers silent in the mist await 5

Their crumbling end, while through the storeyed elms

The Gliding Water leaves these inland realms,

And slips between long meadows to the Sea, Still bearing downward over murmurous falls

One day and then another to the Sea; 10

And slowly thither many years have gone,

Since first the Elves here built Kortirion.

O climbing town upon thy windy hill

With winding streets, and alleys shady-walled Where now untamed the peacocks pace in drill

15

Majestic, sapphirine, and emerald; Amid the girdle of this sleeping land,

Where silver falls the rain and gleaming stand

The whispering host of old deep-rooted trees That cast long shadows in many a bygone noon,

20

And murmured many centuries in the breeze; Thou art the city of the Land of Elms,

Alalminуrл in the Faery Realms.

Sing of thy trees, Kortirion, again:

The beech on hill, the willow in the fen,

25

The rainy poplars, and the frowning yews

Within thine agйd courts that muse

In sombre splendour all the day; Until the twinkle of the early stars

Comes glinting through their sable bars,

30

And the white moon climbing up the sky

Looks down upon the ghosts of trees that die

Slowly and silently from day to day. O Lonely Isle, here was thy citadel,

Ere bannered summer from his fortress fell.

35

Then full of music were thine elms:

Green was their armour, green their helms,

The Lords and Kings of all thy trees. Sing, then, of elms, renowned Kortirion,

That under summer crowd their full sail on,

40

And shrouded stand like masts of verdurous ships,

A fleet of galleons that proudly slips

Across long sunlit seas. II

Thou art the inmost province of the fading isle,

Where linger 1yet the Lonely Companies; 45

Still, undespairing, here they slowly file

Along thy paths with solemn harmonies: The holy people of an elder day,

Immortal Elves, that singing fair and fey

Of vanished things that were, and could be yet, 50

Pass like a wind among the rustling trees,

A wave of bowing grass, and we forget Their tender voices like wind-shaken bells

Of flowers, their gleaming hair like golden asphodels.

Once Spring was here with joy, and all was fair

55

Among the trees; but Summer drowsing by the stream Heard trembling in her heart the secret player

Pipe, out beyond the tangle of her forest dream, The long-drawn tune that elvish voices made

Foreseeing Winter through the leafy glade;

60

The late flowers nodding on the ruined walls Then stooping heard afar that haunting flute

Beyond the sunny aisles and tree-propped halls; For thin and clear and cold the note,

As strand of silver glass remote.

65

Then all thy trees, Kortirion, were bent,

And shook with sudden whispering lament:

For passing were the days, and doomed the nights

When flitting ghost-moths danced as satellites

Round tapers in the moveless air; 70

And doomed already were the radiant dawns,

The fingered sunlight drawn across the lawns;

The odour and the slumbrous noise of meads,

Where all the sorrel, flowers, and plumйd weeds

Go down before the scyther’s share. 75

When cool October robed her dewy furze

In netted sheen of gold-shot gossamers,

Then the wide-umbraged elms began to fail;

Their mourning multitude of leaves grew pale,

Seeing afar the icy spears 80

Of Winter marching blue behind the sun

Of bright All-Hallows. Then their hour was done,

And wanly borne on wings of amber pale

They beat the wide airs of the fading vale,

And flew like birds across the misty meres.

III

85

This is the season dearest to the heart,

And time most fitting to the ancient town, With waning musics sweet that slow depart

Winding with echoed sadness faintly down The paths of stranded mist. O gentle time,

90

When the late mornings are begemmed with rime,

And early shadows fold the distant woods! The Elves go silent by, their shining hair

They cloak in twilight under secret hoods Of grey, and filmy purple, and long bands

95

Of frosted starlight sewn by silver hands.

And oft they dance beneath the roofless sky,

When naked elms entwine in branching lace The Seven Stars, and through the boughs the eye

Stares golden-beaming in the round moon’s face. 100

O holy Elves and fair immortal Folk,

You sing then ancient songs that once awoke

Under primeval stars before the Dawn; You whirl then dancing with the eddying wind,

As once you danced upon the shimmering lawn 105

In Elvenhome, before we were, before

You crossed wide seas unto this mortal shore.

Now are thy trees, old grey Kortirion,

Through pallid mists seen rising tall and wan,

Like vessels floating vague, and drifting far

110

Down opal seas beyond the shadowy bar

Of cloudy ports forlorn; Leaving behind for ever havens loud,

Wherein their crews a while held feasting proud

And lordly ease, they now like windy ghosts

115

Are wafted by slow airs to windy coasts,

And glimmering sadly down the tide are borne. Bare are thy trees become, Kortirion;

The rotted raiment from their bones is gone.

The seven candles of the Silver Wain,

120

Like lighted tapers in a darkened fane,

Now flare above the fallen year. Though court and street now cold and empty lie,

And Elves dance seldom neath the barren sky,

Yet under the white moon there is a sound

125

Of buried music still beneath the ground.

When winter comes, I would meet winter here.

I would not seek the desert, or red palaces

Where reigns the sun, nor sail to magic isles, Nor climb the hoary mountains’ stony terraces;

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And tolling faintly over windy miles To my heart calls no distant bell that rings

In crowded cities of the Earthly Kings.

For here is heartsease still, and deep content, Though sadness haunt the Land of withered Elms