From “The Lost Road and Other Tales”, part III page 109

There lingering lights do golden lie
On grass more green than in gardens here,
On trees more tall that touch the sky
With silver leaves a-swinging clear:
By magic dewed they may not die
Where fades nor falls the endless year,
Where ageless afternoon goes by
O’er mead and mound and silent mere.
There draws no dusk of evening near,
Where voices move in veiléd choir.
Or shrill in sudden singing clear.
And the woods are filled with wandering fire.

The wandering fires the woodland fill,
In glades for ever green they glow,
In dells that immortal dews distill
And fragrance of all flowers that grow.
There melodies of music spill,
And falling fountains splash and flow,
And a water white leaps down the hill
To seek the sea no sail doth know.
Its voices fill the valleys low,
Where breathing keen on bent and briar
The winds beyond the world’s edge blow
And wake to flame a wandering fire.

That wandering fire hath tongues of flame
Whose quenchless colours quiver clear
On leaf and land without a name
No heart may hope to anchor near.
A dreamless dark no stars proclaim,
A moonless night its marches drear,
A water wide no feet may tame,
A sea with shores encircled sheer.
A thousand leagues it lies from here,
And the foam doth flower upon the sea
‘Neath cliffs of crystal carven clear
On shining beaches blowing free.

There blowing free unbraided hair
Is meshed with light of moon and sun,
And tangled with those tresses fair
A gold and silver sheen is spun.
There feet do beat and white and bare
Do lissom limbs in dances run,
Their robes the wind, their raiment air —
Such loveliness to look upon
Nor Bran nor Brendan ever won,
Who foam beyond the furthest sea
Did dare, and dipped behind the sun
On winds unearthly wafted free.

Than Tir-nan-Og more fair and free,
Than Paradise more faint and far,
O! shore beyond the Shadowy Sea,
O! land forlorn where lost things are,
O! mountains where no man may be!
The solemn surges on the bar
Beyond the world’s edge waft to me;
I dream I see a wayward star,
Than beacon towers in Gondobar
More fair, where faint upon the sky
On hills imagineless and far
The lights of longing flare and die.

Submitted by Nerdanel