Work Text:
In winter come, on Hither-Shore
By heaving waves and ocean's roar
Beneath the sun, beside the spray,
He sang in winds and waters gray:
Of gems he sang, of gems of light
That sharply shone in hills so bright,
Where beauty was the crystal sand,
The arts distilled by mind and hand.
Of trees he sang, of trees as tall
As star-gilt walls of Tirion-hall,
Beneath their boughs was misting bright
The silvered dew from Tree of White.
Of light he sang, of light undimmed
In thrones of Jewels the light was brimmed--
Yet words and songs that seaward tossed,
In roaring waves were drowning lost.
O Maglor gentle, fair of tongue
No more will tales of you be sung
By lissom voice in torch-lit halls,
But oft they echo in these walls.
O Wherefore does your spirit dwell--
Beneath the shadows of the swell
Or wandering lost in sunken hulls
A note among the wailing gulls?
O Maglor, how the countless days
Flow south to find the stormy Bay,
No word of thee shall come at last--
Until the Sun and Moon have passed.
O sing of Jewel and Oath and Tree,
And ships that foundered in the Sea,
For long and salted are the streams
You voicèd, wingless, pass in dreams.
O Maglor, fairest bard of old,
Lament alone in darkness cold,
And cast thy words in darkling strands,
And wander eft the mortal sands.