The Deathless Wanderer

folk ballad, cinematic medieval fantasy music. Inspired by the poetry of Tolkien Lyrics: [Verse I] Beyond the circles of the sleepless sea There walks a man no grave shall claim, No winter dim his mortal eye, No years bend low his secret name. The stars grow old above his head, The mountains founder into sand, Yet still unwearied are his feet Upon the darkness of the land. [Verse II] He saw the first white towers rise Beside the rivers silver-pale; He heard beneath forgotten moons The nightingales of vanished vale. The kings of old took up his hand, And bright queens knew his voice in spring, But one by one their candles failed Before the march of Time the King. [Chorus] No doom of Men to him was given, No gift of rest beyond the loam; The doors of death were sealed with iron, And all the world became his home. Yet every road was grief at last, For none beside him lingered long; Their laughter faded into mist Like half-remembered harvest-song. [Verse III] He loved a maid in elder years When forests covered western stone; Her hair was dusk beneath the stars, Her voice the sound of waters lone. She swore beneath the birchen leaves No shadow death could sever them, But winter came with patient hand And laid his frost on diadem. [Bridge] He bore her body to the hill Where white flowers leaned against the rain, And there he sang till dawn arose A song too old for mortal pain. The earth received her gentle form; The grasses drank the tears he shed; But he remained beneath the sky, Uncounted with the noble dead. [Verse IV] Long after empires broke like surf Against the cliffs of history, The deathless wanderer walked alone Beside the cold and tideless sea. The children in the firelit halls Would shrink to hear his ancient tread, For in his eyes there burned the light Of countless names and countless dead. [Chorus] No doom of Men to him was given, No gift of rest beyond the loam; The doors of death were sealed with iron, And all the world became his home. Yet every road was grief at last, For none beside him lingered long; Their laughter faded into mist Like half-remembered harvest-song. [Outro] At times he climbed the northern heights And cried unto the empty air: “O Keeper of the secret years, Why bind me still to grief and care? The gull returns unto the shore, The leaf falls softly to the mold, But I must walk till stars themselves Grow dim and blind and dark and cold.” No answer came from earth or heaven, Save wind among the standing pine; And far away the ancient sea Beat slow upon the shores of time.