The Book of Lost Tales, Part 1 Read online

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

  (Alalminórë 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 peacocks 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,

  Alalminórë 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 agéd 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

  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

  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 glass remote.

  65

  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;

  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 pluméd 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 multitude 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 shore.

  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 bo
nes 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 hoary 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

  (Alalminórë 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

  Alalminórë

  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 peacocks 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 passing 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!

  The elms their full sail now have crowded on

  40

  Ready to the winds, like masts amid the vale

  Of mighty ships too soon, too soon, to sail

  To other days beyond these sunlit seas.

  II

  Narquelion*

  Alalminórë! Green heart of this Isle

  Where linger yet the Faithful Companies!

  45

  Still undespairing here they slowly file

  Down lonely paths with solemn harmonies:

  The Fair, the first-born in an elder day,

  Immortal Elves, who singing on their way

  Of bliss of old and grief, though men forget,

  50

  Pass like a wind among the rustling trees,

  A wave of bowing grass, and men forget

  Their voices calling from a time we do not know,

  Their gleaming hair like sunlight long ago.

  A wind in the grass! The turning of the year.

  55

  A shiver in the reeds beside the stream,

  A whisper in the trees—afar they hear,

  Piercing the heart of summer’s tangled dream,

  Chill music that a herald piper plays

  Foreseeing winter and the leafless days.

  60

  The late flowers trembling on the ruined walls

  Already stoop to hear that elven-flute.

  Through the wood’s sunny aisles and tree-propped halls

  Winding amid the green with clear cold note

  Like a thin strand of silver glass remote.

  65

  The high-tide ebbs, the year will soon be spent;

  And all your trees, Kortirion, lament.

  At morn the whetstone rang upon the blade,

  At eve the grass and golden flowers were laid

  To wither, and the meadows bare.

  70

  Now dimmed already comes the tardier dawn,

  Paler the sunlight fingers creep across the lawn.

  The days are passing. Gone like moths the nights

  When white wings fluttering danced like satellites

  Round tapers in the windless air.

  75

  Lammas is gone. The Harvest-moon has waned.

  Summer is dying that so briefly reigned.

  Now the proud elms at last begin to quail,

  Their leaves uncounted tremble and grow pale,

  Seeing afar the icy spears

  80

  Of winter march to battle with the sun.

  When bright All-Hallows fades, their day is done,

  And borne on wings of amber wan they fly

  In heedless winds beneath the sullen sky,

  And fall like dying birds upon the meres.

  III

  Hrívion*

  85

  Alas! Kortirion, Queen of Elms, alas!

  This season best befits your ancient town

  With echoing voices sad that slowly pass,

  Winding with waning music faintly down

  The paths of stranded mist. O fading time,

  90

  When morning rises late all hoar with rime,

  And early shadows veil the distant woods!

  Unseen the Elves go by, their shining hair

  They cloak in twilight under secret hoods

  Of grey, their dusk-blue mantles gird with bands

  95

  Of frosted starlight sewn by silver hands.

  At night they dance beneath the roofless sky,

  When naked elms entwine in branching lace