Galadriel's Song of Lórien

This is the song that Galadriel sang on the swan-ship before giving the Fellowship their gifts.

I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold there grew:

Of wind i sang, a wind there came, and in the branches blew.

Beyond the Sun, beyond the Moon, the foam was on the Sea,

And by the strands of Ilmarin there grew a golden tree.

Beneath the stars of Ever-eve in Eldamar it shown,

In Eldamar beside the walls of Elven Tirion.

There long the golden leaves have grown upon the branching years,

While here beyond the Sundering Seas now fall the Even-tears.

O Lorien! The Winter comes, the bare and leafless Day;

The leaves are falling in the stream, the River flows away.

O Lorien! Too long I have dwelt upon this Hither Shore

And in a fading crown have twined the golden elanor.

But if of ships I now should sing, what ship would come to me,

What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a Sea?