A Song of Aryador

A Song of Aryador, called Án léoþ Éargedores in Old English, was a poem written by J.R.R. Tolkien "in an army camp near Lichfield on September 12th" in 1915. It is about the Shadow Folk (referring to lost Elves) in Aryador (Ilkorin: "land or place of shadow"). It was published in ., Vol. I: , V: "The Coming of the Elves and the Making of Kôr", "Notes and Commentary", pgs. 138-9
== Poem ==
In the vales of Aryador
By the wooded inland shore
Green the lakeward bents and meads
Sloping down to murmurous reeds
That whisper in the dusk o'er Aryador:
'Do you hear the many bells
Of the goats upon the fells
Where the valley tumbles downward from the pines?
Do you hear the blue woods moan
When the Sun has gone alone
To hunt the mountain-shadows in the pines?
She is lost among the hills
And the upland slowly fills
With the shadow-folk that murmur in the fern;
And still there are the bells
And the voices in the fells
While Eastward a few stars begin to burn.
Men are kindling tiny gleams
Far below by mountain-streams
Where they dwell among the beechwoods near the shore,
But the great woods on the height
Watch the waning western light
And whisper to the wind of things of yore,
When the valley was unknown,
And the waters roared alone,
And the shadow-folk danced downward all the night,
When the Sun had fared abroad
Through great forests unexplored
And the woods were the full of wandering beams of light.
Then were voices on the fells
And the sound of ghostly bells
And a march of shadow-people o'er the height.
In the mountains by the shore
In forgotten Aryador
There was dancing and was ringing;
There were shadow-people singing
Ancient songs of olden gods in Aryador.'
== In other versions ==
=== The Pines of Aryador ===
The first version of the poem was called The Pines of Aryador. The word "she" in the third stanza was originally the word "he".
== References ==
Category:Poems in The Book of Lost Tales