#carol law conklin

“As they passed beyond the green field of the Tongue, the trees drew down to the river’s brink. Here and there golden leaves tossed and floated on the rippling stream. The air was very bright and still, and there was a silence, except for the high distant song of larks.

They turned a sharp bend in the river, and there, sailing proudly down the stream toward them, they saw a swan of great size. The water rippled on either side of the white breast beneath its curving neck. Its beak shone like burnished gold, and its eyes glinted like jet set in yellow stones; its huge white wings were half lifted. A music came down the river as it drew nearer; and suddenly they perceived that it was a ship, wrought and carved with elven-skill in the likeness of a bird. Two elves clad in white steered it with black paddles. In the midst of the vessel sat Celeborn, and behind him stood Galadriel, tall and white; a circlet of golden flowers was in her hair, and in her hand she held a harp, and she sang. Sad and sweet was the sound of her voice in the cool clear air:

  I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold there grew:
  Of wind I sang, a wind there came and in the branches blew.
  Beyond the Sun, beyond the Moon, the foam was on the Sea,
  And by the strand of Ilmarin there grew a golden Tree.
  Beneath the stars of Ever-eve in Eldamar it shone,
  In Eldamar beside the walls of Elven Tirion.
  There long the golden leaves have grown upon the branching years,
  While here beyond the Sundering Seas now fall the Elven-tears.
  O Lórien! The Winter comes, the bare and leafless Day;
  The leaves are falling in the stream, the River flows away.
  O Lórien! Too long I have dwelt upon this Hither Shore
  And in a fading crown have twined the golden elanor.
  But if of ships I now should sing, what ship would come to me,
  What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a Sea?”