The Song of Arda
(From “Annatanam”.)
Low as a lute, my love, beneath the callOf storm, I hear a melancholy wind;The memorably mournful wind of yoreWhich is the very brother of the oneThat wanders, like a hermit, by the moundOf Death, in lone Annatanam. A songWas shaped for this, what time we heard outsideThe gentle falling of the faded leafIn quiet noons: a song whose theme doth turnOn gaps of Ruin and the gay-green cliftsBeneath the summits haunted by the moon.Yea, much it travels to the dens of dole;And in the midst of this strange rhyme, my lords,Our Desolation like a phantom sitsWith wasted cheeks and eyes that cannot weepAnd fastened lips crampt up in marvellous pain.
A song in whose voice is the voice of the foamAnd the rhyme of the wintering wave,And the tongue of the things that eternally roamIn forest, in fell or in cave;But mostly ’tis like to the Wind without homeIn the glen of a desolate grave—Of a deep and desolate grave.
The torrent flies over the thunder-struck cliftWith many and many a call;The leaves are swept down, and a dolorous driftIs hurried away with the fall.But mostly ’tis like the Wind without homeIn the glen of a desolate grave—Of a deep and desolate grave.
Whoever goes thither by night or by dayMust mutter, O Father, to Thee,For the shadows that startle, the sounds that waylayAre heavy to hear and to see;And a step and a moan and a whisper for ayeHave made it a sorrow to be—A sorrow of sorrows to be.
Oh! cover your faces and shudder, and turnAnd hide in the dark of your hair,Nor look to the Glen in the Mountains, to learnOf the mystery mouldering there;But rather sit low in the ashes and urnDead hopes in your mighty despair—In the depths of your mighty despair.