Song of Durin

The world was young, the mountains green ,

No stain yet on the moon was seen,

No words were laid on stream or stone

When Durin woke and walked alone.

He named the nameless hills and dells;

He drank from yet untasted wells;

He looked and saw in Mirrormere,

And saw a crown of stars appear,

As gems upon a sliver thread,

Above the shadow of his head.

The world was fair, the mountains tall ,

In Elder Days before the fall

Of might kings in Nargothrond

And Gondolin, who was now beyond

The Western Sea have passed away:

The world was fair in Durin's Day

A king he was on the carven throne

In many-pillared halls of stone

With golden roof and silver floor

and runs of power upon the door

The light of sun and star and moon

In shining lamps of crystal hewn

Undimmed by cloud or shade of night

There shone for ever fair and bright

There hammers on the anvil smote,

There chisel clove, and graver wrote;

There forged was blade, and bound was hilt;

The deliver mined, the mason built.

There beryl, pearl, and opal pale,

And metal wrought like fishes mail,

Buckler and corslet, axe and sword,

And shining spearswere laid in hoard

Unwearied then were Durin's folk

Beneath the mountains music woke:

The harps harped, the minstrels sang,

and at the gates the trumpets rang.

The world is grey, the mountains old,

The forge'fire is ashen-cold;

No harp is wrung, no hammer falls:

The darkness dwells in Durin'halls;

The shadow lies upon his tomb

In Moria, in Khazad-d?m.

But still the sunken stars appear

In dark and windless Mirrormere;

There lies his crown in water deep,

Till Durin wakes again from sleep.