ReVerse

[HerenIstarion]

Down the swift dark stream you go
Back to lands you once did know!
Leave the halls and caverns deep,
Leave the northern mountains steep,
Where the forest wide and dim
Stoops in shadow grey and grim!
Float beyond the world of trees
Out into the whispering breeze,
Past the rushes, past the reeds,
Past the marsh's waving weeds,
Through the mist that riseth white
Up from mere and pool at night!
Follow, follow stars that leap
Up the heavens cold and steep;
Turn when dawn comes over land,
Over rapid, over sand,
South away! and South away!
Seek the sunlight and the day,
Back to pasture, back to mead,
Where the kine and oxen feed!
Back to gardens on the hills
Where the berry swells and fills
Under sunlight, under day!
South away! and South away!
Down the swift dark stream you go
Back to lands you once did know!


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Up the light slow slope I toil
From the sea I never roil
On from home on plains widespread
In the south free from dread
Where meadows wide and free
Bask in sunlight full of glee
In I go to river’s source
Up to highlands on my course
By I pass the shady groves
On my slow and hazy roves
In the heat of midday sun
On the dry sand oft I run
When the moon comes down to ground
Stars to earth by morn are bound
Yet the eve comes creeping on
Over desert than I’m gone
North I come, with hardy toil
Seeking night which none can spoil
On to highland and the rock
Where heights all passers mock
Where pines so proud and tall
Never pay the axeman’s toll
Where dark of roots is strong
Where stags come crowned with prongs
Up the light slow slope I toil
From the sea I never roil