Lament for Minas Tirith
Her walls are high, her spires tall
The white city of Gondor.
Her gate is broad and established the highway that leads to her gate.
Trade flows from abroad, every object of quality.
All the glory of middle earth passes unto the Steward of the white city.
Precious Jewels unhinged from the deepest pits sit high upon his crown.
The Hosts of Gondor are like the stars of the sky.
The white city a timeless bastion of man.
Your men boast, "no siege weapon can prevail,
Nor any worldly army undermine.
The city is rooted and cannot be moved."
Yet you are a corrupt people.
A race ashamed before the nations
for your line of kings is broken.
You flaunt your splendour, but the race of men has failed.
Your city is a den of thieves and always murderous thoughts upon your mind.
Meanwhile your kingdom festers,
Osgiliath brought to rubble and Minas Ithil made into a tower of sorcery
doubtless, the spirit of the enemy endures.
Behold! Your doom is upon you.
For I see a darkness approaching,
Your city shall be laid to ruin, your broad gate broken.
And not one stone shall rest upon another.
An alliance of nations shall march upon your causeway.
with weapons of steel and beasts of terror.
Your guardsman will flee for their lives.
But all will be smitten upon the mountainside.
Surely this fate shall befall the great city of men,
unless their power rediscovered, their strength reforged.
Unless the king should sit upon the throne of Gondor, united with all,
then there shall be no dawn for men, nor any consolation.
Succumb to evil and embrace the enemy whose ways you know.
Have courage and the age of evil should never come to pass.
May you put behind you the stubbornness of your ancestors
and embrace, in wisdom, what is right.
Be on your guard for the time is close at hand.