Minas Morgul
Small halfing feet climb anxiously in silent and in weary tread,
And halfling eyes wide-flown with fear gaze out upon on a valley dread.
Can you not see them trembling, O Tower of the Moon that was?
Or are you blind to little things that crawl and start and limp and pause?
Perhaps you sit a queen and safe, for who would choose to climb that stair
And turn from cleaner battlegrounds unto the peril woven there?
So cold! the way whose primal deeps in years remote and dim were hewn,
And now as full of patient death as any gold-bespattered tomb.
Your secret eyes peer proudly down upon a strange and sickly stream
Whose lambent fume entwines the fragrance of a foul, infected dream;
For there the loathsome nightmare blooms bedeck the poisoned Morgul-lea,
White-fleshed like something pale and drowned surrendered by a killing sea.
And all about, the dark abides; dusk leaning, sinking, melting deep.
High in its shroud the little shadows clamber softly, softly creep.
Can you not see them hurrying, O Tower of the Moon undone?
The furtive mice that seek the path forever hidden from the sun?
You brood upon the sullen rock, by age of purposed evil scarred,
And at your feet the portent gloomings lurk in grim and watchful guard,
As 'cross the chill, forbidding span your legions pass in stern parade
And unbeknownst a foe slips by, O Tower of the Moon betrayed!