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*

Alalminуrл! 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 spears80

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

Hrнvion*

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 The Seven Stars, and through the boughs the eye

Stares down cold-gleaming in the high moon’s face.100

O Elder Kindred, fair immortal folk!

You sing now ancient songs that once awoke

Under primeval stars before the Dawn; You dance like shimmering shadows in the wind,

As once you danced upon the shining lawn105

Of Elvenhome, before we were, before

You crossed wide seas unto this mortal shore.

Now are your trees, old grey Kortirion,

Through pallid mists seen rising tall and wan,

Like vessels vague that slowly drift afar

110

Out, out to empty seas beyond the bar

Of cloudy ports forlorn; Leaving behind for ever havens loud,

Wherein their crews a while held feasting proud

In lordly ease, they now like windy ghosts

115

Are wafted by cold airs to friendless coasts,

And silent down the tide are borne. Bare has your realm become, Kortirion,

Stripped of its raiment, and its splendour gone.

Like lighted tapers in a darkened fane

120

The funeral candles of the Silver Wain

Now flare above the fallen year. Winter is come. Beneath the barren sky

The Elves are silent. But they do not die!

Here waiting they endure the winter fell

125

And silence. Here I too will dwell;

Kortirion, I will meet the winter here.IV

Mettanyл*

I would not find the burning domes and sands

Where reigns the sun, nor dare the deadly snows, Nor seek in mountains dark the hidden lands

130

Of men long lost to whom no pathway goes; I heed no call of clamant bell that rings

Iron-tongued in the towers of earthly kings.

Here on the stones and trees there lies a spell Of unforgotten loss, of memory more blest

135

Than mortal wealth. Here undefeated dwell The Folk Immortal under withered elms,

Alalminуrл once in ancient realms.

I conclude this commentary with a note on my father’s use of the word Gnomes for the Noldor, who in the Lost Tales are called Noldoli. He continued to use it for many years, and it still appeared in earlier editions of The Hobbit.†

In a draft for the final paragraph of Appendix F to The Lord of the Rings he wrote:

I have sometimes (not in this book) used ‘Gnomes’ for Noldor and ‘Gnomish’ for Noldorin. This I did, for whatever Paracelsus may have thought (if indeed he invented the name) to some ‘Gnome’ will still suggest knowledge.* Now the High-elven name of this people, Noldor, signifies Those who Know; for of the three kindreds of the Eldar from their beginning the Noldor were ever distinguished both by their knowledge of things that are and were in this world, and by their desire to know more. Yet they in no way resembled the Gnomes either of learned theory or popular fancy; and I have now abandoned this rendering as too misleading. For the Noldor belonged to a race high and beautiful, the elder Children of the world, who now are gone. Tall they were, fair-skinned and grey-eyed, and their locks were dark, save in the golden house of Finrod…

In the last paragraph of Appendix F as published the reference to ‘Gnomes’ was removed, and replaced by a passage explaining the use of the word Elves to translate Quendi and Eldar despite the diminishing of the English word. This passage—referring to the Quendi as a whole—continues however with the same words as in the draft: ‘They were a race high and beautiful, and among them the Eldar were as kings, who now are gone: the People of the Great Journey, the People of the Stars. They were tall, fair of skin and grey-eyed, though their locks were dark, save in the golden house of Finrod…’ Thus these words describing characters of face and hair were actually written of the Noldor only, and not of all the Eldar: indeed the Vanyar had golden hair, and it was from Finarfin’s Vanyarin mother Indis that he, and Finrod Felagund and Galadriel his children, had their golden hair that marked them out among the princes of the Noldor. But I am unable to determine how this extraordinary perversion of meaning arose.†