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
