© Ronald Kyrmse                           certur @ amonhen . com . br

Um Poema Dedicado aos Elfos - A Poem Dedicated to the Elves
Ein den Elben Gewidmetes Gedicht - Poemo Dedichita al la Elfoj
TO THE ELDAR

In Middle-earth a people dwelt
     Who sorrow felt, whose soul was sore.
They came before the Followers,
     The borrowers in Númenor.
In Eriador, in lands so fair,
     They would live there for evermore,
But Valinor did once decree
     That over Sea they go before
The End, restore to other hands
     The star-lit lands, the ocean's roar.
Long yearning for the distant West,
     They came to rest upon its shore
Whereof their lore had always told.
     Even though cold their doom they bore
Until the hoar of time should melt,
     No fear they felt, and knew no dearth.
In Middle-earth a people dwelt...

Now they are neither here nor there --

I wrote this poem in July 1981. Originally it had Middle-Earth with a capital E; I corrected this. It was inspired by the rhyme scheme of J. R. R. Tolkien's Errantry, which has almost-rhymes between the end of one line and the middle of the next. But here the intention was to have exact rhymes between each line n and the middle of n+1 -- except between lines 15 and 16. Most of the rhymes are in -or, and among these three out of twelve are, very conveniently, names of lands. Lines 16 and 17 form a kind of coda or envoi, ending in a Quenya phrase written in tengwar, meaning "they have passed away, they have passed away".
Only now, more than twenty Years of the Sun after its creation, does To the Eldar reach the World Wide Web. But may we remember them for many yéni to come.

Certur Harmatir (Ronald Kyrmse)
September 2001
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