O fading town upon an island hill,

Old shadows linger in thine ancient gate,

Thy robe is grey, thine old heart now is still;

Thy towers silent in the mist await their crumbling end

While through the storeyed elms

The gliding black 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

And slowly thither many years have gone



All thy trees, Kortirion, were bent,

And shook with sudden whispering lament:

For passing were the days, and doomed the nights

When flittering ghost-moths danced round

tapers in the moveless air nighttime



And doomed already were the radiant dawns,

The odour and the noise of meads,

when all thy trees were bent,

and shook with sudden whispering lament



And slowly thither many years have gone

since first the elves here built ancient, renowned Kortirion