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{{Youmay|a poem|the city [[Kortirion]]}}
'''''Kortirion among the Trees''''' is a poem by [[J.R.R. Tolkien]].
'''''Kortirion among the Trees''''' is a poem by [[J.R.R. Tolkien]].


:''O fading town upon an inland hill''
The poem was published in ''[[The Book of Lost Tales Part One]]''.
:''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 [[Belegaer|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 [[Tol Eressëa|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]]


[[Category:Poems by J.R.R. Tolkien]]
[[Category:Poems by J.R.R. Tolkien]]
[[Category:Aman]]

Revision as of 19:44, 7 March 2012

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

The poem was published in The Book of Lost Tales Part One.