The white town of the Wanderer

And the rocks of Eglamar.

There Wingelot is harboured,

While Eдrendel looks afar

O’er the darkness of the waters      30

Between here and Eglamar—

Out, out, beyond Taniquetil

In Valinor afar.

There are some interesting connections between this poem and the tale of The Coming of the Elves and the Making of Kфr. The ‘lonely hill’ of line 2 is the hill of Kфr (cf. the tale, I.122: ‘at the head of this long creek there stands a lonely hill which gazes at the loftier mountains’), while ‘the golden feet of Kфr’ (a line replaced in the later versions of the poem) and very probably ‘the sand That stretches on for ever’ are explained by the passage that follows in the tale:

Thither [i.e. to Kфr] did Aulл bring all the dust of magic metals that his great works had made and gathered, and he piled it about the foot of that hill, and most of this dust was of gold, and a sand of gold stretched away from the feet of Kфr out into the distance where the Two Trees blossomed.

18 marches] margent

20–21 To the dragonheaded door, The gateway of the Moon] From the golden feet of Kфr

24 West of the Sun, east of the Moon] O! West of the Moon, East of the Sun

27 rocks] rock

28 Wingelot] Earliest text Wingelot > Vingelot; second text Vingelot; third text Vingelot > Wingelot; last text Wingelot

30 O’er the darkness of the waters] On the magic and the wonder

31 Between] ’Tween

In the latest text Elvenland is lightly written over Faлry in line 13, and Eldamar against Eglamar in line 27 (only); Eglamar > Eldamar in the second text.

With the ‘dragonheaded door’ (line 20) cf. the description of the Door of Night in The Hiding of Valinor (I.215–16):

Its pillars are of the mightiest basalt and its lintel likewise, but great dragons of black stone are carved thereon, and shadowy smoke pours slowly from their jaws.

In that description the Door of Night is not however ‘the gateway of the Moon’, for it is the Sun that passes through it into the outer dark, whereas ‘the Moon dares not the utter loneliness of the outer dark by reason of his lesser light and majesty, and he journeys still beneath the world [i.e. through the waters of Vai]’.

IV

The Happy Mariners

I give lastly this poem whose subject is the Tower of Pearl in the Twilit Isles. It was written in July 1915,¹² and there are six texts preceding the version which was published (together with ‘Why the Man in the Moon came down too soon’) at Leeds in 1923* and which is the first of the two given here.

(I)

I know a window in a western tower

That opens on celestial seas,

And wind that has been blowing round the stars

Comes to nestle in its tossing draperies.

It is a white tower builded in the Twilight Isles,      5

Where Evening sits for ever in the shade;

It glimmers like a spike of lonely pearl

That mirrors beams forlorn and lights that fade;

And sea goes washing round the dark rock where it stands,

And fairy boats go by to gloaming lands      10

All piled and twinkling in the gloom

With hoarded sparks of orient fire

That divers won in waters of the unknown Sun

And, maybe, ’tis a throbbing silver lyre,

Or voices of grey sailors echo up      15

Afloat among the shadows of the world

In oarless shallop and with canvas furled;

For often seems there ring of feet and song

Or twilit twinkle of a trembling gong.

O! happy mariners upon a journey long      20

To those great portals on the Western shores

Where far away constellate fountains leap,

And dashed against Night’s dragon-headed doors,

In foam of stars fall sparkling in the deep.

While I alone look out behind the Moon      25

From in my white and windy tower,

Ye bide no moment and await no hour,

But chanting snatches of a mystic tune

Go through the shadows and the dangerous seas

Past sunless lands to fairy leas      30

Where stars upon the jacinth wall of space

Do tangle burst and interlace.

Ye follow Earendel through the West,

The shining mariner, to Islands blest;

While only from beyond that sombre rim      35

A wind returns to stir these crystal panes

And murmur magically of golden rains

That fall for ever in those spaces dim.

In The Hiding of Valinor (I.215) it is told that when the Sun was first made the Valar purposed to draw it beneath the Earth, but that

it was too frail and lissom; and much precious radiance was spilled in their attempts about the deepest waters, and escaped to linger as secret sparks in many an unknown ocean cavern. These have many elfin divers, and divers of the fays, long time sought beyond the outmost East, even as is sung in the song of the Sleeper in the Tower of Pearl.

That ‘The Happy Mariners’ was in fact ‘the song of the Sleeper in the Tower of Pearl’ seems assured by lines 10–13 of the poem.

For ‘Night’s dragon-headed doors’ see p. 273. The meaning of jacinth in ‘the jacinth wall of space’ (line 31) is ‘blue’ cf. ‘the deep-blue walls’ in The Hiding of Valinor (1.215).

Many years later my father rewrote the poem, and I give this version here. Still later he turned to it again and made a few further alterations (here recorded in footnotes); at this time he noted that the revised version dated from ‘1940?’.

(2)

I know a window in a Western tower

that opens on celestial seas,

and there from wells of dark behind the stars

blows ever cold a keen unearthly breeze.

It is a white tower builded on the Twilit Isles,      5

and springing from their everlasting shade

it glimmers like a house of lonely pearl,

where lights forlorn take harbour ere they fade.

Its feet are washed by waves that never rest.

There silent boats go by into the West      10

all piled and twinkling in the dark

with orient fire in many a hoarded spark

that divers won

in waters of the rumoured Sun.

There sometimes throbs below a silver harp,      15

touching the heart with sudden music sharp;

or far beneath the mountains high and sheer

the voices of grey sailors echo clear,

afloat among the shadows of the world

in oarless ships and with their canvas furled,      20

chanting a farewell and a solemn song:

for wide the sea is, and the journey long.

O happy mariners upon a journey far,

beyond the grey islands and past Gondobar,

to those great portals on the final shores      25

where far away constellate fountains leap,

and dashed against Night’s dragon-headed doors

in foam of stars fall sparkling in the deep!

While I, alone, look out behind the moon

from in my white and windy tower,      30

ye bide no moment and await no hour,

but go with solemn song and harpers’ tune

through the dark shadows and the shadowy seas

to the last land of the Two Trees,

whose fruit and flower are moon and sun,      35

where light of earth is ended and begun.

Last revisions:

3 and there omitted

blows ever cold] there ever blows

17 mountains] mountain

22 the journey] their journey

29 While I look out alone

30 imprisoned in the white and windy tower