King Pharamond

Stay thy praise--let me speak, lest all speech depart from me. --There is a place in the world, a great valley That seems a green plain from the brow of the mountains, But hath knolls and fair dales when adown there thou goest: There are homesteads therein with gardens about them, And fair herds of kine and grey sheep a-feeding, And willow-hung streams wend through deep grassy meadows, And a highway winds through them from the outer world coming: Girthed about is the vale by a grey wall of mountains, Rent apart in three places and tumbled together In old times of the world when the earth-fires flowed forth: And as you wend up these away from the valley You think of the sea and the great world it washes; But through two you may pass not, the shattered rocks shut them. And up through the third there windeth a highway, And its gorge is fulfilled by a black wood of yew-trees. And I know that beyond, though mine eyes have not seen it, A city of merchants beside the sea lieth.---- I adjure thee, my fosterer, by the hand of my father, By thy faith without stain, by the days unforgotten, When I dwelt in thy house ere the troubles' beginning, By thy fair wife long dead and thy sword-smitten children, By thy life without blame and thy love without blemish, Tell me how, tell me when, that fair land I may come to! Hide it not for my help, for my honour, but tell me, Lest my time and thy time be lost days and confusion!