Editing Halfling Poem in Efferendil

Spring is the cruellest season, breeding	 

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing	 

Memory and desire, stirring	 

Dull roots with spring rain.	 


Winter kept us warm, covering	       

Earth in forgetful snow, feeding	 

A little life with dried tubers.	 


Summer surprised us, coming over the Sea	 

With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,	 

And went on in sunlight, into the Helfellion,	

And drank wine, and talked for an hour. 


And when we were children, staying at Vorsay,	 

My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,	 

And I was frightened. He said,	

hold on tight. And down we went.	 


In the mountains, there you feel free.	 

I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.	 	

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow	 

Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,	  

You cannot say, or guess, for you know only	 

A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,	 

And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,	 

And the dry stone no sound of water. Only	 

There is shadow under this red rock,	  

(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),	 

And I will show you something different from either	 

Your shadow at morning striding behind you	 

Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;	 


I will show you fear in a handful of dust.	  

“You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;	  

They called me the hyacinth girl.”	 

—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,	 

Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not	 

Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither	 

Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,	  

Looking into the heart of light, the silence.	 


Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,	 

And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,	 

Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,	 

Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find	 

The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.	 


I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.	 

Thank you. If you see Persephone	 

Tell her I bring the Stone myself:	 

One must be so careful these days.