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O fading town upon an island hill, |
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Old shadows linger in thine ancient gate, |
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Thy robe is grey, thine old heart now is still; |
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Thy towers silent in the mist await their crumbling end |
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While through the storeyed elms |
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The gliding black water leaves these inland realms, |
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And slips between long meadows to the |
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Sea, Still bearing downward over murmurous falls |
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One day and then another to the |
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Sea And slowly thither many years have gone |
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All thy trees, |
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Kortirion, were bent, |
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And shook with sudden whispering lament: |
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For passing were the days, and doomed the nights |
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When flittering ghost-moths danced round tapers in the moveless air nighttime |
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And doomed already were the radiant dawns, |
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The odour and the noise of meads, when all thy trees were bent, and shook with sudden whispering lament |
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And slowly thither many years have gone since first the elves here built ancient, renowned |
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Kortirion |