Kortirion among the Trees

Kortirion among the Trees is a poem by J.R.R. Tolkien.

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

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

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

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

And murmured many centuries in the breeze

Thou art the city of the Land of Elms

Alalminórë in the Fairy Realms

Sing of thy trees Kortirion again

The beech on hill the willow in the fen

The rainy poplars and the frowning yews

Within thine agéd courts that muse

In sombre splendour all the day

Until the twinkle of the early stars

Comes glinting through their sable bars

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

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 crowds their full sail on

And shrouded stand like masts of verdurous ships

A fleet of galleons that proudly slips

Across long sunlit seas.

Thou art the inmost province of the fading isle

Where linger yet the Lonely Companies

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

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

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

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

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

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 pluméd weeds

Go down before the scyther’s share

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Are wafted by slow airs to windy coasts

And the glimmering sadly down the tide are borne

Bare are thy trees become Kortirion

The rotted rainment from their bones is gone

The seven candles of the Silver Wain

Like lighted tapers in a darkened fane

Now flare above the fallen year

Through 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

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 tail to magic isles

Nor climb the hoary mountains’ stony terraces

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

And making music still in sweet lament

The Elves here holy and immortal dwell

And on the stones and trees there lies a spell.

— J.R.R. Tolkien