The Last
The blooms have
withered and the grass is brown.
The waves lap against a desolate
shore.
Lothlorien has lost its golden crown.
The time of the
elves is no more.
I
have seen the gulls soar in the morning,
I have heard their calls
with the fall of the sun.
I've listened to them herald each
day's dawning.
It's the voice of the Valar; they tell me
'Come.'
Manwe speaks of
the white shores that will greet me,
Varda praises the sky, awash
with elven stars,
Yavanna tells tales of forests to entreat
me.
They ask 'Why do you wish to stay where you are?'
What hope do you
find in that desolate land
where Eru's second-born are doomed to
wander?
What is there that is keeping you from your homeland?
Why
do you willingly cast yourself asunder?
But I ask my
kinsfolk why they abandoned me,
why they chose beauty above the
land of their birth!
How could they discard this place so
callously?
Tell me, oh tell me, how you left Middle Earth!
It's withered,
yes, and it's growing old,
the stars are fading in the darkening
sky,
the forests are shrinking, and the nights grow ever cold.
But
it's where we were born, and are meant to die.
It's not a
land that's seen too much sorrow;
it's not just the place
where we were born.
It's the stars of tonight, and the sun of
tomorrow,
it's forest and field, and mountain and shore.
It's the trees
that watched us when we were young,
that guarded us when the world
grew unsafe.
It's the sound of the river, and the soft
elventongue.
It's lore and it's legend; this is not just a
place!
But my friends,
my kin, you have cast it off,
you've abandoned it in search of
whiter shores.
You found peace, perhaps, but how much have you
lost?
How much more do you now have to mourn?
The sun plunges
behind the tips of the trees.
Stone eyes watch me as I depart from
the shore;
they sing a song of sorrow as I drop to my knees,
and
weep for a past that is finished, no more.
Dwarves will
mine and men become kings.
White towers will rise, and black
towers fall.
Soldiers will fight, and minstrels will sing.
But
my people are no longer a part of it all.
Their wandering
spirits have filled them once more,
and again, yet again, they
continue their search.
It will lead them, in time, to the land of
Valinor.
And I will be the last elf in middle earth.