I give the poem first in its pre-1937 form, when only slight changes had yet been made. In one of the earliest copies it bears a title in Old English: Cor Tirion p
Kortirion among the Trees
The First Verses
O fading town upon a little hill,
Old memory is waning in thine ancient gates, The robe gone gray, thine old heart almost still;
The castle only, frowning, ever waits5
And ponders how among the towering elms
The Gliding Water leaves these inland realms
And slips between long meadows to the western sea— Still bearing downward over murmurous falls
One year and then another to the sea;10
And slowly thither have a many gone
Since first the fairies built Kortirion.
O spiry town upon a windy hill
With sudden-winding alleys shady-walled (Where even now the peacocks pace a stately drill,
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Majestic, sapphirine, and emerald), Behold thy girdle of a wide champain
Sunlit, and watered with a silver rain,
And richly wooded with a thousand whispering trees That cast long shadows in many a bygone noon,
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And murmured many centuries in the breeze. Thou art the city of the Land of Elms,
Alalminуrл in the Faery Realms.
Sing of thy trees, old, old Kortirion! Thine oaks, and maples with their tassels on,25
Thy singing poplars; and the splendid yews That crown thine agйd 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 unfurled35
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 clothйd 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
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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
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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.
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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 plumйd 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 shears80
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
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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 down90
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 hoods95
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
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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-wingйd winds;
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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 long115
And gorgeous ease, who now like windy ghosts Are wafted by slow airs to empty coasts; There are they sadly glimmering borne Across the plumbless ocean of oblivion. Bare are thy trees become, Kortirion,120
And all their summer glory swiftly gone. The seven lampads of the Silver Bear Are waxen to a wondrous flare That flames above the fallen year. Though cold thy windy squares and empty streets;125
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
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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.
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Here do I find a haunting ever-near content Set midmost of the Land of withered Elms
(Alalminуrл of the Faery Realms);
Here circling slowly in a sweet lament Linger the holy fairies and immortal elves
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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 await5
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