The Book Of Lost Tales: Part I Part 5

65.

Then all thy trees, Kortirion, were bent, And shook with sudden whispering lament: For pa.s.sing 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 plumed 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 mult.i.tude 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 sh.o.r.e.

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 h.o.a.ry mountains' stony terraces; 130.

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 135.

(Alalminr in the Faery Realms); And making music still in sweet lament The Elves here holy and immortal dwell, And on the stones and trees there lies a spell.

I give lastly the final poem, in the second of two slightly different versions; composed (as I believe) nearly half a century after the first.

The Trees of Kortirion I.

Alalminr O ancient city on a leaguered hill!

Old shadows linger in your broken gate, Your stones are grey, your old halls now are still, Your towers silent in the mist await

5.

Their crumbling end, while through the storeyed elms The River Gliding leaves these inland realms And slips between long meadows to the Sea, Still bearing down by weir and murmuring fall One day and then another to the Sea;

10.

And slowly thither many days have gone Since first the Edain built Kortirion.

Kortirion! Upon your island hill With winding streets, and alleys shadow-walled Where even now the peac.o.c.ks pace in drill

15.

Majestic, sapphirine and emerald, Once long ago amid this sleeping land Of silver rain, where still year-laden stand In unforgetful earth the rooted trees That cast long shadows in the bygone noon,

20.

And whispered in the swiftly pa.s.sing breeze, Once long ago, Queen of the Land of Elms, High City were you of the Inland Realms.

Your trees in summer you remember still: The willow by the spring, the beech on hill;

25.

The rainy poplars, and the frowning yews Within your aged courts that muse In sombre splendour all the day, Until the firstling star comes glimmering, And flittermice go by on silent wing;

30.

Until the white moon slowly climbing sees In shadow-fields the sleep-enchanted trees Night-mantled all in silver-grey.

Alalminor! Here was your citadel, Ere bannered summer from his fortress fell;

35.

About you stood arrayed your host of elms: Green was their armour, tall and green their helms, High lords and captains of the trees.

But summer wanes. Behold, Kortirion!