The world was young, the mountains green, <br />No stain yet on the Moon was seen, <br />No words were laid on stream or stone, <br />When Durin woke and walked along. <br />He named the nameless hills and delles; <br />He drank from yet untasted wells; <br />He stopped and looked in Mirrormere, <br />And saw a crown of stars appear, <br />As gems upon a silver thread, <br />Above the shadow of his head. <br />The world was fair, the mountains tall, <br />In Elder Days before the fall <br />Of mighty kings in Nargothrond <br />And Gondolin, who now beyond <br />The Western Seas have passed away. <br />The world was fair in Durin's Day. <br /> <br />A king he was on carven throne <br />In many-pillared halls of stone <br />With golden roof and silver floor, <br />And runes of power upon the door. <br />The light of sun and star and moon <br />In shining lamps of crystal hewn <br />Undimmed by cloud or shade of night <br />There shown for ever fair and bright. <br /> <br />There hammer on the anvil smote, <br />There chisel clove, and graver wrote; <br />There forged was blade, and bound was hilt; <br />The delver mined, the mason built. <br />There beryl, pearl, and opal pale, <br />And metal wrought like fishes' mail, <br />Buckler and corslet, axe and sword, <br />And shining spears were laid in hoard. <br />Unwearied then were Durin's folk; <br />Beneath the mountain music woke: <br />The harpers harped, the minstrels sang, <br />And at the gates the trumpets rang. <br /> <br />The world is grey, the mountains old, <br />The forge's fire is ashen-cold; <br />No harp is wrung, no hammer falls: <br />The darkness dwells in Durin's halls; <br />The shadow lies upon his tomb <br />In Moria, in Khazad-dum. <br />But still the sunken stars appear <br />In dark and windless Mirrormere; <br />There lies his crown in water deep. <br />Till Durin wakes again from sleep.<br /><br />John Ronald Reuel Tolkien<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/durin/
