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25

Thy singing poplars; and the splendid yews

That crown thine agéd walls and muse

Of sombre grandeur all the day—

Until the twinkle of the early stars

Is tangled palely in their sable bars;

30

Until the seven lampads of the Silver Bear

Swing slowly in their shrouded hair

And diadem the fallen day.

O tower and citadel of the world!

When bannered summer is unfurled

35

Most full of music are thine elms—

A gathered sound that overwhelms

The voices of all other trees.

Sing then of elms, belov’d Kortirion,

How summer crowds their full sails on,

40

Like clothéd masts of verdurous ships,

A fleet of galleons that proudly slips

Across long sunlit seas.

The Second Verses

Thou art the inmost province of the fading isle

Where linger yet the Lonely Companies.

45

Still, undespairing, do they sometimes slowly file

Along thy paths with plaintive harmonies:

The holy fairies and immortal elves

That dance among the trees and sing themselves

A wistful song of things that were, and could be yet.

50

They pass and vanish in a sudden breeze,

A wave of bowing grass—and we forget

Their tender voices like wind-shaken bells

Of flowers, their gleaming hair like golden asphodels.

Spring still hath joy: thy spring is ever fair

55

Among the trees; but drowsy summer by thy streams

Already stoops to hear the secret player

Pipe out beyond the tangle of her forest dreams

The long thin tune that still do sing

The elvish harebells nodding in a jacinth ring

60

Upon the castle walls;

Already stoops to listen to the clear cold spell

Come up her sunny aisles and perfumed halls:

A sad and haunting magic note,

A strand of silver glass remote.

65

Then all thy trees, old town upon a windy bent,

Do loose a long sad whisper and lament;

For going are the rich-hued hours, th’enchanted nights

When flitting ghost-moths dance like satellites

Round tapers in the moveless air;

70

And doomed already are the radiant dawns,

The fingered sunlight dripping on long lawns;

The odour and the slumbrous noise of meads,

When all the sorrel, flowers, and pluméd weeds

Go down before the scyther’s share.

75

Strange sad October robes her dewy furze

In netted sheen of gold-shot gossamers,

And then the wide-umbraged elm begins to fail;

Her mourning multitudes of leaves go pale

Seeing afar the icy shears

80

Of Winter, and his blue-tipped spears

Marching unconquerable upon the sun

Of bright All-Hallows. Then their hour is done,

And wanly borne on wings of amber pale

They beat the wide airs of the fading vale

85

And fly like birds across the misty meres.

The Third Verses

Yet is this season dearest to my heart,

Most fitting to the little faded town

With sense of splendid pomps that now depart

In mellow sounds of sadness echoing down

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-wingéd 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