The Book of Lost Tales, Part 1 - J. R. R. Tolkien [56]
Innumerable birds chattered in its eaves; and some sang upon the housetops, while doves and pigeons circled in flights about the korin’s borders or swooped to settle and sun upon the sward. Now all that dwelling was footed in flowers. Blossomy clusters were about it, ropes and tangles, spikes and tassels all in bloom, flowers in panicles and umbels or with great wide faces gazing at the sun. There did they loose upon the faintly stirring airs their several odours blended to a great fragrance of exceeding marvellous enchantment, but their hues and colours were scattered and gathered seemingly as chance and the happiness of their growth directed them. All day long there went a hum of bees among those flowers: bees fared about the roof and all the scented beds and ways; even about the cool porches of the house. Now Littleheart and Eriol climbed the hill and it was late afternoon, and the sun shone brazen upon the western side of Ingil’s tower. Soon came they to a mighty wall of hewn stone blocks, and this leaned outward, but grasses grew atop of it, and harebells, and yellow daisies.
A wicket they found in the wall, and beyond was a glade beneath the elms, and there ran a pathway bordered of one side with bushes while of the other flowed a little running water whispering over a brown bed of leafy mould. This led even to the sward’s edge, and coming thither said Littleheart pointing to that white house: ‘Behold the dwelling of Meril-i-Turinqui, and as I have no errand with so great a lady I will get me back again.’ Then Eriol went over the sunny lawn alone until he was nigh shoulder-high in the tall flowers that grew before the porches of the door; and as he drew near a sound of music came to him, and a fair lady amid many maidens stepped forth as it were to meet him. Then said she smiling: ‘Welcome, O mariner of many seas—wherefore do you seek the pleasure of my quiet gardens and their gentle noise, when the salt breezes of the sea and the snuff of winds and a swaying boat should rather be your joy?’
For a while Eriol might say nought thereto, being tongue-tied by the beauty of that lady and the loveliness of that place of flowers; yet at length he muttered that he had known sea enough, but of this most gracious land he might never be sated. ‘Nay,’ said she, ‘on a day of autumn will come the winds and a driven gull, maybe, will wail overhead, and lo! you will be filled with desire, remembering the black coasts of your home.’2 ‘Nay, lady,’ said Eriol, and now he spoke with eager voice, ‘nay, not so, for the spirit that flutes upon twilit lawns has filled my heart with music, and I thirst for a draught of limpë!’
Then straightway did the smiling face of Meril grow grave, and bidding her maidens depart she prayed Eriol follow her to a space nigh to the house, and this was of cool grass but not very short. Fruit-trees grew there, and about the roots of one, an apple-tree of great girth and age, the soil was piled so that there was now a broad seat around its bole, soft and grass-covered. There sat Meril and she gazed upon Eriol and said: ‘Know you then what it is that you ask?’ and he said: ‘I know nought save that I desire to know the soul of every song and of all music and to dwell always in fellowship and kinship with this wondrous people of the Eldar of the Isle, and to be free of unquenchable longing even till the Faring Forth, even till the Great End!’
But Meril said: ‘Fellowship is possible, maybe, but kinship not so, for Man is Man and Elda Elda, and what Ilúvatar has made unalike may not become alike while the world remains. Even didst thou dwell here till the Great End and for the health of limpë found no death, yet then must thou die and leave us, for Man must die once. And hearken, O Eriol, think not to escape unquenchable longing with a draught of