Hollin

      Tree-filled, the land stands untended,
      The empty wind rustles among the dull-shining leaves,
      Deep-green, sharp-edged as the days it once knew.
      The land lies silent where once it heard singing.
      In the lore-telling of Imladris, perhaps,
      Those who remember the ancient days of its glory
      May recount the tales, may recall those singing voices;
      But their echoes are no longer heard in Hollin.
      Stillness. Stillness.
      It's mourning days are past,
      The green grasses have long softened any battle scars,
      The bones are turned to dust, and
      The heart's mourning long dulled by time.
      The land no longer aches to feel their footsteps,
      For they will not return, they who turned away.
      They are forever gone.

      Redder than the berries of their beloved holly trees,
      Their blood once ran,
      Pain-filled and heart-rent,
      Fleeing the betrayal of their people,
      The terror of destruction of their land;
      Violently crushed
      In the grip of one hand wielding darkness.
      Their own beauty was turned against them,
      Peace shattered like mirror: Bruised holly leaves
      And juice of berries with their life's-blood mixing underfoot
      As they fought and fled, and wept for loss,
      Overflowing with regret, keening in their grief.

      From the strife and the sorrow,
      They scattered and they fled.
      Many sought the seawaves long ago, and they are gone.
      Gone forever. Never to return.
      But the land has a memory of its own.
      Their virtue remained as the endless seasons passed;
      A slow, slow fading of their light.
      The scattered stones remember them:
      The skilled hands that worked them, builded them.
      Lifted them. Shaped them.
      But even in memory of stone and earth
      They are now little more than a wisp or a dream.

      Eregion of old, home of the jewel-crafters,
      The smith-masters, the ring-makers.
      Dreamers and workers of the loveliest of arts.
      Land of jewels, sweet metals and elven lore,
      The wonder of your ancient trees abides.
      More aged than the Rings of power,
      Older than the delving of the mines;
      By evil plans and strife you were of living bereft.
      Taking the serpent to your bosom, you were bitten indeed -
      Is there any pain sharper than betrayal? Death.
      Why did you not see his true nature underneath?
      You trusted and loved too deep and too well,
      But your virtue was deep-rooted, and it yet remains.
      Empty and silent now, you seem as ageless as the mountains
      Waiting nearby with their fast-closed, darkened doors.
      Pale in moonlight, the connecting road still lays between you -
      A crumbling monument to your perilous trade,
      A lifeless handclasp carved into the land.

      Hollin -
      Your substance is woven only of memory.
      In your air and soil, in the road and in the trees -
      Aching soft remembrances of life and of joy.
      Though there is a trilling of bewinged life among your boughs,
      Your time is slipping away into ancient histories,
      A name written in the dust.
      Who yet mourns?
      The night stars still shine down upon you,
      Scattered jewels that your craftsmen could never reach or set.
      Your purity and peace that inhabit the very soil have
      Faded and thinned with naught to give them life.
      It is in vain you offer shelter;
      The trees circle about in sympathy
      Where there is distress.
      In an age-old reaction to shield against the evil,
      Hollin desperately reaches out it's green arms, covering
      But it cannot.
      As a mist that fades in the rising of the sun,
      Ethereal as clouds that pass away before a cold night-wind,
      Beauty and history it may have, but not strength.
      No strength, no voice left in its song...
      Only the slowly fading echoes of Eregion.

A. Buckles / '03