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