The City of the Gods is a poem written by J.R.R. Tolkien and published in the Spring of 1923 in the magazine The Microcosm, Vol.8 No.1. It can be read within The Book of Lost Tales Part One.[1]
Poem[]
A sable hill, gigantic, rampant-crowned
stands gazing out across an azure sea
under an azure sky, on whose dark ground
impearled as 'gainst a floor of porphyry
gleam marble temples white, and dazzling halls;
and tawny shadows fingered long are made
in fretted bars upon their ivory walls
by massy trees rock-rooted in the shade
like stony chiselled pillars of the vault
with shaft and capital of black basalt.
There slow forgotten days for ever reap
the silent shadows counting out rich hours;
and no voice stirs; and all the marble towers
white, hot and soundless, ever burn and sleep.
In other versions[]
Kôr: In a City Lost and Dead[]
The first version of the poem was published on April 30 in 1915 as Kôr: In a City Lost and Dead. The second version was originally called Kôr, but was changed to the current name.[1]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 The History of Middle-earth, Vol. I: The Book of Lost Tales Part One, III: "The Coming of the Valar and the Building of Valinor, "Notes and Commentary", pg. 136