Gunnar's Howe Above The House At Lithend

Ye who have come o'er the sea

to behold this grey minster of lands,

Whose floor is the tomb of time past,

and whose walls by the toil of dead hands

Show pictures amidst of the ruin

of deeds that have overpast death,

Stay by this tomb in a tomb

to ask of who lieth beneath.

Ah! the world changeth too soon,

that ye stand there with unbated breath,

As I name him that Gunnar of old,

who erst in the haymaking tide

Felt all the land fragrant and fresh,

as amidst of the edges he died.

Too swiftly fame fadeth away,

if ye tremble not lest once again

The grey mound should open and show him

glad-eyed without grudging or pain.

Little labour methinks to behold him

but the tale-teller laboured in vain.

Little labour for ears that may hearken

to hear his death-conquering song,

Till the heart swells to think of the gladness

undying that overcame wrong.

O young is the world yet meseemeth

and the hope of it flourishing green,

When the words of a man unremembered

so bridge all the days that have been,

As we look round about on the land

that these nine hundred years he hath seen.

Dusk is abroad on the grass

of this valley amidst of the hill:

Dusk that shall never be dark

till the dawn hard on midnight shall fill

The trench under Eyiafell's snow,

and the grey plain the sea meeteth grey.

White, high aloft hangs the moon

that no dark night shall brighten ere day,

For here day and night toileth the summer

lest deedless his time pass away.