and doomed the nights,
when flitting ghostmoths danced
round tapers in the moveless air.
And doomed already were,
the radiant dawns,
the odour and the noise of meads
and all about is night.
One moment now may give us more
than fifty years of reason,
our minds shall drink of every pore
the spirit of the season
To her fair works did nature link
the human souls that through me ran
and much it grieved my heart to think
what I can make of man.
You look around on Middle-Earth
as if she for no purpose bore you,
as if you were her first-born birth,
and none had lived before you.
I sit upon this old grey stone,
and dream my time away.