In halls are hung the storied webs,
Tears of the world worked by hands
Deftly moving warp and weft,
Cloth that catches shadowed shapes
Of Men and Elves in bright-hued threads,
Worked in the woven doom of time.
Fast and fleeting falls the time
Spiralling down in tangled webs
Downward scattered fall the threads
As men now with grasping hands
Grab at misty diaphanous shapes.
If gone the warp, what good the weft?
Yet ever in the halls the weft
That longer grows as ravels time
Adds the countless shifting shapes
As lengthens strands from spinning webs.
Ever tireless the hands
Seeking stories in its threads.
Bewildered I among the threads
Wander now through doom’s wide weft.
And slip from my own trembling hands
The secrets of long-vanished time.
Glimpses grey within the web
Fade and fail in pale shapes.
Once the proud and princely shapes,
Once in gleaming golden threads,
Worked in light your storied webs.
More weary now the sluggish weft
As greyer wears the fall of time
Poor subject for a weaver’s hand.
In what rhythm move the hands
What motifs echo as you shape,
The countless tapestries of time,
And sound within the solemn threads?
Or is the tale told in weft
And warp of marred unwinding webs?
And ever yet the hand in time,
Webs it shapes beyond our ken,
With tangled threads and hidden weft.
