Tha Eadigan Saelidan: The Happy Mariners

Tha Eadigan Saelidan: The Happy MarinersJ.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment, pg. 459 (entry "Northern Venture, A") is a poem by J.R.R. Tolkien. The first version was written on July 11The History of Middle-earth, Vol. II: The Book of Lost Tales Part Two, V: "The Tale of Eärendel", IV: The Happy Mariners, Note 12, 1915 and revised on July 24th, September 9th, and four more times before it was published in June of 1920 as The Happy Mariners within The Stapeldon Magazine.The Stapeldon Magazine, 1920 on tolkienbooks.net A revised form was published in 1923 as Tha Eadigan Saelidan: The Happy Mariners in A Northern Venture on pages 282-3. The last version was made in the 1940s. The last two versions were reprinted by Christopher Tolkien in The Book of Lost Tales Part Two with to Douglas A. Anderson's help. The poem describes the Tower of Pearl within the Twilit Isles and is identified by Christopher Tolkien as "the song of the Sleeper in the Tower of Pearl".The History of Middle-earth, Vol. II: The Book of Lost Tales Part Two, V: "The Tale of Eärendel", IV: The Happy Mariners, pgs. 273-4
==Lyrics==
(Last Version)
:I know a window in a Western tower
:that opens on celestial seas,
:from wells of dark beyond the stars
:there ever blows a keen unearthly breeze.
:It is a white tower builded in the Twilit Isles,
:and springing from their everlasting shade
:it glimmers like a house of lonely pearl,
:where lights forlorn take harbour ere they fade.
:Its feet are washed by waves that never rest.
:There silent boats go by into the West
:all piled and twinkling in the dark
:with orient fire in many a hoarded spark
:that divers won
:in waters of the rumoured Sun.
:There sometimes throbs below a silver harp,
:touching the heart with sudden music sharp;
:or far beneath the mountain high and sheer
:the voices of grey sailors echo clear,
:afloat among the shadows of the world
:in oarless ships and with their canvas furled,
:chanting a farewell and a solemn song:
:for wide the sea is, and their journey long.
:O happy mariners upon a journey far,
:beyond the grey islands and past Gondobar,
:to those great portals on the final shores
:where far away constellate fountains leap,
:and dashed against Night's dragon-headed doors,
:in foam of stars fall sparkling in the deep!
:While I look out alone behind the moon
:imprisoned in the white and windy tower,
:you bide no moment and await no hour,
:but go with solemn song and harpers' tune
:Ye follow Eärendel without rest,
:the shining mariner, beyond the West,
:who passed the mouth of night and launched his bark
:upon the outer seas of everlasting dark.
:Here only comes at whiles a wind to blow
:returning darkly down the way ye go,
:with perfume laden of unearthly trees.
:Here only long afar through window-pane
:I glimpse the flicker of the golden rain
:that falls for ever on the outer seas.
== References ==
Category:Poems in The Book of Lost Tales