towers

662 the two towers
low banks much trampled by the passage of horses. The
travellers passed over and came upon a wide rutted track
leading towards the uplands.
At the foot of the walled hill the way ran under the shadow
of many mounds, high and green. Upon their western sides
the grass was white as with a drifted snow: small flowers
sprang there like countless stars amid the turf.
‘Look!’ said Gandalf. ‘How fair are the bright eyes in the
grass! Evermind they are called, simbelmynë in this land of
Men, for they blossom in all the seasons of the year, and
grow where dead men rest. Behold! we are come to the great
barrows where the sires of Théoden sleep.’
‘Seven mounds upon the left, and nine upon the right,’
said Aragorn. ‘Many long lives of men it is since the golden
hall was built.’
‘Five hundred times have the red leaves fallen in Mirkwood
in my home since then,’ said Legolas, ‘and but a little while
does that seem to us.’
‘But to the Riders of the Mark it seems so long ago,’ said
Aragorn, ‘that the raising of this house is but a memory of
song, and the years before are lost in the mist of time. Now
they call this land their home, their own, and their speech is
sundered from their northern kin.’ Then he began to chant
softly in a slow tongue unknown to the Elf and Dwarf; yet
they listened, for there was a strong music in it.
‘That, I guess, is the language of the Rohirrim,’ said
Legolas; ‘for it is like to this land itself; rich and rolling in
part, and else hard and stern as the mountains. But I cannot
guess what it means, save that it is laden with the sadness of
Mortal Men.’
‘It runs thus in the Common Speech,’ said Aragorn, ‘as
near as I can make it.
Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that
was blowing?
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair
flowing?