A Lament For Númenor

[Telamon]

AN: This is a revised version of one of my oldest poems. Added some new verses and wholly reinvented almost every rhyme scheme. Enjoy.

A Lament For Numenor
or
The Akallabeth, in Five Parts

"...And even the name of that land perished, and Men spoke thereafter not of Elenna, nor of Andor the Gift that was taken away, nor of Númenórë on the confines of the world; but the exiles on the shores of the sea, if they turned towards the West in the desire of their hearts, spoke of Mar-nu-Falmar that was whelmed in the waves, Akallabêth the Downfallen -- Atalantë in the Eldarin tongue."
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Part One: Elenna, the Fair


And where is the star that was frozen in the west?
And where are the pillars which stood in the sun?
And where the silver curtains, like starlight spun?
Where now are the grasses that once were on the mountain blooming?
And where is the white tree that stood like a tall tower looming?
Where have they gone, those men who stood highest of all,
Lords of mountain and star and shore,
those elf-wise princes of lost Elenna-nöre?
Where now have gone both the tower and the guard?
And where now are passing the banners bright flowing free?
They have gone away, one and all, beyond the western seas.

So where, then, are the crown and the king that were blessed?
And where, then, is all that of old was Westernesse?


Part Two: Andor, the Gift


What brought they then,
who saw the days long ago begun,
after the moon and before the sun?
A star from high, set adrift,
A princely land, a princely gift.
Tall ships she mothered, and tall men,
Whose rule was over all the waves:
Crowned in glory were their days.

From west to east they heedless went
Wherever the waves smashed on the coast
So rushed they too upon the tide
Sailing for-ever far and wide
Until they met at last where all oceans failed
And homeward bound turned west at last
And westward sped on western winds
Until once more by starlight dim
they beheld again the still waves
of that first and utmost shore, Elenna-nöre!

Part Three: Númenórë, the Great

A land there was in the eldest west,
Where elder king and elven-lord
there lived undying -- Valar-blessed,
free from fear of age or sword.

But those kings of men, they but passing fair,
Did look and dream and dare to see
For themselves an immortal future there —
In lands undying beyond the sea.

For these men who had had on earth no living fear
came to live at last in terror of the flesh:
They felt that they saw in their misery clear
That looming, creeping shadow of death
And as so they grew terrible and bent with age
they dreamt of prophecy in high black halls
And laboured ere long with many thralls
to slip the tightening chain about their necks,
Yet they only mouldered more by their rage
and wasted years of bitter breath,
and sank all too soon into death.

Towers they built and tombs they made,
And temples they raised all dark in the shade,
To hide their mouldering corpses frail
From that tireless foe which doth not fade.

And in their fear they loved one above all others,
Who claimed that he held even death bay,
and ancient magics taught to their kings
Which in time made the night to shine as day.

And when he spoke to men it was as a summer spell,
But across their hearts long shadows fell.
Zigurun they named him then, and as a god
they trembled bowing beneath his rod.
And HE, who had held other names of old —
When, in Elder Days before the fall
Of mighty kings in Nargothrond and Gondolin
Who now beyond the Western Seas are gone away
Untold and shadowy hosts swung to his sway.
Then many deeds he had wrought
In darkness fast beneath the earth
Which still by elves are kept in fearful thought.
Many names had that spirit then:
Thu was he called in the Iron Hells,
And the Gorthaur was he to the ancient elves.
But he was feared above all by mortal men,
who in ancient ages long gone by
had bowed bewildered beneath the eye
of that master known to them
as Sauron.

Rings he gave to their proudest and fairest:
Three and three he counted them,
Lords in glory, kings of men.
Nine they were and nine they remain,
Dead without death, alive without flesh.
Black their names and black their deeds
Black their days and black their steeds.

Part Four: Akallabeth, the Downfallen


And at his word they raised a fleet —
Ten times ten and ten again,
Until the sails of men blacked the sky.
That glorious host, it sailed for the West
And never again returning came.
Yet even as they passed, the silver seas were tossed up soaring,
And from the unseen deeps their end came roaring.

In an hour unlooked for it is said their doom befell:
From the oceans their came rising a terrible swell.
The seas they had once tamed tossed and turned —
And dealt them that judgement which all Men had earned.

Swift was the Doom that sudden swept
Upon their silver and ivory and pearls untold.
Over all that was high and fair and blessed
Came climbing the Wave, bitter and cold.

The ocean swelled with the stink of death,
and those who lived knew it always on their breath
And would speak never after of Numenor —
But of dead and drowned Akallabeth.


Part Five: Atalantë, the Drowned


The seas are split, the earth is rent,
The way is gone, the world is bent.
Theirs was the pride and theirs the cost:
All is drowned — The Gift is lost.

Silent are the horns and silent the drums.
No trumpet now sounds, no banner now flies.
Gone are the scepter and crown that were blest:
Such is the fate of all that was high.

Yet still the Mountain breaks the deep
Where the seas roll silent yet
O'er Atalantë in endless sleep.

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Their ships lie in the black below,
But the lantern-swords still gleam and glow --
Shining dim in the deep forevermore:
an echo of the glory that was Númenore
—

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