CODA The branches bare, the mountains old the land now under roaring tide the grasses high and rivers cold, all buried beneath the ocean wide. And even in Ossiriand on leaf and stone the ages lay and gone of old are Elves from land, for long ago, they passed away. And gone is Finrod Elven-king. Long he left the Hither-shore into the West where warblers sing and comes to Middle-Earth no more. He walks in Elven halls of old beneath the shinning silver eaves beneath the rustling boughs of gold and wind among the dancing leaves. And there the green, undying plains still roll beside the Shadowmere and earthen time like chiming rains still fall in countless Elven-years. But Bëor and his folk of Men, where now they walk, none can tell, away afar, beyond the ken of Elven-kind, beyond the bell of the changéd and the edgeless world beyond the crowns of oak and elm, beyond the staves of Music furled, beyond the night’s murky helm. The lands they walk, no one has seen what sight or music, none shall know, what azure skies and grasses green, what air or water, joy or woe.
But long ago, in Ossiriand they walked the woods of hinterland beneath the sunlight’s eastern rays when the world was fair in Elder Days.
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