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-winged 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 (Alalminr 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 peac.o.c.ks 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, Alalminr 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 aged 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 yet 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.
Pa.s.s like a wind among the rustling trees, A wave of bowing gra.s.s, 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 gla.s.s remote.