My son was born in the twilight of hope and light
When the world was still happy,
My husband was still alive,
And I was still young.
They called me Gilraen the Fair
When I wed Arathorn,
Short-lived chieftan of the Dunedain.
My child never knew that he became tall and noble
Like his father.

So we went to live in Imladris
with the elven-kind
We called my son Estel
-Hope-
Though often there was none.
He became such a handsome man,
Strong and fair,
protected from the darkness of the world,
the world that he would inherit.
I sat by and watched the leaves drift slowly down.

The light of the Elves was bright in his eyes
And the light of the Evenstar burned in his heart.
I told him that his hopes were too great:
He is mortal, like his father
and my father,
and all our fathers.
My son will die, someday.
They all die.
And so he left our home
I knew he was destined to walk the wilds alone
I would be left, forlorn, watching oblivion approach.

For fifty years I was alone
A mortal woman in the house of the Elves
I grew old
Each wrinkle on my face but a ripple in their pools
Gilraen the Fair became Gilraen the Worn,
the Patient, the Quiet, the waiting mother.
Sitting silently,
Watching the wind blow through the trees.

He left me to worry for him,
As he put himself in danger
like all his forefathers always had.
My cares aged me, my faith withered away

Until I could not bear to see the youthful faces
of the Elves more ancient than I will ever be.
I went to be with my people
In the dark and desolate world
where I could be alone with my sorrows.

“Onen i-Estel Edain, u-chebin estel anim”
That is what I told him when he came to see me, that last time.
“I gave Hope to the Dunedain, I have kept no hope for myself”
I gave the world the only gift I could
And I received no thanks.

But I knew my son was strong and good
He would give the world the hope I rarely had
He asked me, that last time, to come with him
To see him receive the crown and scepter that he had won.
I could not stir myself from where I sat and waited for death.
But I still knew, at the bitter end, that there would be hope again,
That the world would be happy and full of light again,
and women would be young and fair again.
They would be safe in the hands of my Aragorn,
My Estel,
My son.