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