Song To Liralor
A trail from the Liralor Mountains descends,
And through the green country sweetly wends.
It winds between waters and flower-piled meads,
And marshes where the ducklings are at play in the reeds.

The flowers of Liralor- like gems they glow.
Star-shaped the whiteflower, with a smell as of snow.
Deep treasure of amethyst, with touches of blue-
There blooms the evenflower of indigo hue.

Diamond lilies spangle the diamond rivers in flood.
Along the banks scarlet roses like drops of blood
Blow with the wind, and bend their heads, and weep
A cloud of fire-sunset into water bright and deep.

From the mountains of Liralor- the foothills they fall,
Long, grassy steps down to the woodlands' dark hall.
Copses of fruit trees, groves of pines green as ire,
Leap and flow down the hills before joining with briar.

Song of the east, the pale clouds of the sunrise
Come blowing before their lord to greet opening eyes.
When the light fountains through a tear in the cloud,
Then the radiance fills Liralor, and birdsong is loud.

Shafts of light, loosed, stab the hearts of trees old,
And lie on the leaves in pools of shimmering gold.
Now and then a soft drizzle veils the kings
In whose boughs the wind still now and then sings.

In the hearts of the forests, the darkness yet lingers,
Touching the sunlight with a miser's greedy fingers.
Soft furtive movements, and the whisper of the dark,
Are there to balance the bluebird and lark.

From the highest of trees, an eagle takes wing, 
Soaring and dancing as if bound by a string
To the earth that he sails so serenely above.
He gazes down on the land that I love.

The River plashes and roars, gathering its power,
As it plunges from the woods where the waters take flower,
And surges over tiny waterfalls and beds of bright stone.
The water is its blood, and the rock is its bone.

A gleaming silvery line that shines with the light
Of the rising sun, and makes the eagle take flight,
Higher and higher, as if he could outsoar the sun,
His eyes on the land where the rivers do run.

Soon the River divides, and the many smaller waters
Go whispering over the slopes like gossiping daughters.
Laughter and noise, the song of the sun at daybreak,
A fitting music for the journeys rivers take.

Fields and forests, plains and hills and purple mountains,
Are laced all about with the silver corsets of fountains.
Life-giving and radiant, the River forever flows,
From the Liralor Mountains to where the evenflower grows.

The eagle rises and rises, to the highest clouds aspires,
And feathers flash copper from brown in endless sun-fires.
But at last he must return, dropping from on high
To the ponds that hold a shattered map of the sky.

He falls past the hills, like lightning wheeling around,
And follows the generally downward path of the ground.
Circling, turning, banking against the push of the wind,
He comes upon a river that is at play in the bend.

Here the trees grow thick, and the sound of willow tears
Is all the sound, besides river-laughter, that one hears.
The eagle settles himself on one branch that flexes hard,
And his gaze falls on one pale- amid the green- shard.

If he were to gaze to the east, the direction of love,
He would see the greatest treasure below or above.
Or what remains of it- for the city of Erondinim
Was long ago sheathed by trees and by the dusk dim.

A reverential hush wreathes white and blue stones,
And here no dead disturb the air with soft moans.
The curling branches of trees embrace the ruins, an arm
No less tender than a mother's holding a child from harm.

The towers and the streets slumber, and the river's joy
Hides all sign of what happens when we unknown destroy
Something nearly too precious to live in the world:
Peace, and creation, and bright wings now furled.

Abandoned- but not without a look back, nor without tears!
The memory of Erondinim lives still, though even the years
Have forgotten how many times the eagle has wheeled
While the city dreamed, and to seed went the field.

We know, we always know, that in our hearts we are exiled,
And all the years we have spent away we have only whiled
The time away, waiting for the time when the sun tells
Us to return to Liralor's everlasting rivers and dells.

On that day, Erondinim will rise bright and fair again,
And Liralor shall once more be renownéd among men.
A name that has long slumbered is still a name,
And can be used to seal our immortal dead claim.

The eagle takes flight again, above a land so bright
That now the wise use its name to mean "light."
The air that bears him shall echo again, as in yore,
With the tender sweet fairness of what was once Liralor.