forgotten, the land of sleep,
the time before the birth of the worlds

The echoes of his harp,
have poisoned the air
the horizons of the earth
have drowned

I have heard you were strangers in a false land,
where visions turn to faith.
No longer I am now


2. Flesh And Blood

There was dancing and was ringing
There were shadow-people singing
Ancient songs of olden gods

Old shadows linger in thine ancient gate,
Thy robe is grey, thine old heart now is still
Thy robe is grey, thine old heart now is still
Thy towers silent in the mist await
Their crumbling end, while through the elms
The Gliding Water leaves these inland realms,
And slips between long meadows to the Sea

There was dancing and was ringing
There were shadow-people singing
Old shadows linger in thine ancient gate,
Thy robe is grey
Thy robe is grey

Thou art the inmost province of the fading isle,
Where linger yet the Lonely Companies;
Kortirion, I will meet the winter here

Thy towers silent in the mist await
Their crumbling end, while through the elms
The Gliding water leaves these inland realms,
And slips between long meadows to the Sea

There was dancing and was ringing
There were shadow-people singing
Ancient songs of olden gods
Old shadows linger in thine ancient gate,
Thy robe is grey, thine old heart now is still

Kortirion, I will meet the winter here, and conquer you


3. Kortirion Among The Trees

For passing where the days, my friend
and doomed the nights,
when flitting ghostmoths danced
round tapers in the moveless air.

And doomed already were,
the radiant dawns,
the odour and the noise of meads
and all about is night.

One moment now may give us more
than fifty years of reason,
our minds shall drink of every pore
the spirit of the season

To her fair works did nature link
the human souls that through me ran
and much it grieved my heart to think
what I can make of man.

You look around on Middle-Earth
as if she for no purpose bore you,
as if you were her first-born birth,
and none had lived before you.

I sit upon this old grey stone,
and dream my time away.


4. Habbanan Beneath The Stars

In Habbanan beneath the skies
Where all roads end however long
There is a sound of faint echoes
And distant echoes of a song,
For there men gather into rings
Round their red fires while one voice sings -
And all about is night

Not night as ours, unhappy folk,
Where nigh the Earth in hazy bars,
A mist about the springing of the stars,
There trails a thin and wandering smoke
Obscuring with its veil half-seen
The great abysmal still Serene.

A globe of dark glass faceted with light
Wherein the splendid winds have dusky flight;
Untrodden spaces of an odorous plain
That watches for the moon that long has lain
And caught the meteors' fiery rain -
Such there is night.

…and caught the meteors' fiery rain
If I am dead and gone, would you remain