Songs for the Seasons by losselen

Midwinter spring

Midwinter spring
Daeron for Lúthien, forsaking Doriath, searching for her in Eriador

Once you danced. In Doriath you danced alone. You stood in the frosted valley and all around you bloomed. The gold-leafed autumn lived with the fresh spring, contour in contour, in your steps. The inveterate morning travelled in your grace. In Doriath you danced to my song, and like the niphredil my words sprang from the earth, limpid and sweet, blooming from the mind like a breath. They danced in me, visions of your flashing limbs among the hemlock leaves. Translucent, and vast. In Doriath that is lost beyond the mountains.

But now the light fractures in my words. The stars are cold and broken. The dawn laps on barren lands and eats the greenness from the grass. And neither high nor infinite is my soul, that looks for you everywhere. But nowhere are you. O Lúthien! I remember so much. When in midwinter the wind moans in the peaks and wallows in the plains I can almost hear in its sound the sweet notes of spring. O Lúthien. Such is the false spring of your memories.