Dirge Without Music
A few facts:
1. I do not own The Silmarillion. Maedhros and Fingon do not belong to me. But! I can still play with them.
Maedhros and Fingon: *swear*
Now, now, boys! Be nice or I'll wash your mouths out with soap!
Maedhros: Go ahead and try. Come riiiiight down into the fires at the center of the earth. Come on.
Don't have to. You're not there yet.
Fingon: What about me?
You're still dead.
Fingon: Oh. Good.
Maedhros: Damn. I'm guessing that means I'm-
Angsting. Yup. Good guess. This brings me to:
2. The poem 'Dirge Without Music' was written by Edna St. Vincent Millard. Inasmuch as she died in 1950, I am not she. Probably.
3. This story is rated PG for death. Oh, so scary and unanticipated in a Silmarillion story! *end sarcasm*
4. This story contains Maedhros/Fingon SLASH. If this bothers you, go away and stop aggravating my homicidal tendencies.
5. If you want to disregard that last item and flame me, or just grovel before my superior writing skills (hah!), or anything in between, the review button is at the bottom of this page.
6. There are no further items.
The burial party is marching. The families of the slain, the friends, the lovers, they all come to bid the dead farewell. I come to bid my soul farewell.
I need not search; I know where you have fallen. How could I not, when my bleeding heart cries out at every step I take away from you? I knew the instant you were gone where your abandoned body lay. I come to you singing, singing the last song I can make for you, a song of my loss.
I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind.
Always we have laid our dead to rest in the earth whence we were made. Always, and now is no different.
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go, but I am not resigned.
The others have made wreaths for their dead. White and green, white lilies and laurels for the dead heroes. I will not. You always hated lilies, and laurel made you sneeze. I remember this of you, now.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains—but the best is lost.
What will the world remember of you, when all who truly knew you are dead and gone? The grandchildren of children yet unborn, will you be naught to them but High King? There is so much more to you, so much they will ever know. They will never know any of the things I remember.
The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,--
I remember long conversations with you, arguing and joking over everything and nothing. I remember you looking at me, the first and last to see me alone. I remember your laugh, music more fair than any my brother will make. I remember, most wonderful and painful of all, the feel of your lips on mine the day you said you loved me. I remember…Memory is all I have left of you.
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
You are gone, gone at last where I cannot follow. Not now, maybe never. I know that, because you fought and died for them, we may win back our—their—Jewels from the Enemy. But that matters none to me.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.
I would give all the glory and riches of a final victory to have you back with me. The light of the Silmarils can never replace the light I have seen in your eyes. But they endure, and you are gone.
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
The burial mound is ready. You are the last. I will place you in the earth myself; no other came for you. The earth closes over your beautiful face. You are gone from me at last. But not forever. I will see you again, I swear it. Until that day farewell…my Findekano.
Happy slightly late Christmas. And gods help us, every one!