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the field of cormallen 1253
For our days are ending and our years failing.
I will pass the wide waters lonely sailing.
Long are the waves on the Last Shore falling,
Sweet are the voices in the Lost Isle calling,
In Eressëa, in Elvenhome that no man can discover,
Where the leaves fall not: land of my people for ever!’
And so singing Legolas went away down the hill.
Then the others also departed, and Frodo and Sam went
to their beds and slept. And in the morning they rose again
in hope and peace; and they spent many days in Ithilien. For
the Field of Cormallen, where the host was now encamped,
was near to Henneth Annûn, and the stream that flowed from
its falls could be heard in the night as it rushed down through
its rocky gate, and passed through the flowery meads into the
tides of Anduin by the Isle of Cair Andros. The hobbits
wandered here and there visiting again the places that they
had passed before; and Sam hoped always in some shadow
of the woods or secret glade to catch, maybe, a glimpse of
the great Oliphaunt. And when he learned that at the siege
of Gondor there had been a great number of these beasts but
that they were all destroyed, he thought it a sad loss.
‘Well, one can’t be everywhere at once, I suppose,’ he said.
‘But I missed a lot, seemingly.’
In the meanwhile the host made ready for the return to
Minas Tirith. The weary rested and the hurt were healed.
For some had laboured and fought much with the remnants
of the Easterlings and Southrons, until all were subdued.
And, latest of all, those returned who had passed into Mordor
and destroyed the fortresses in the north of the land.
But at the last when the month of May was drawing near
the Captains of the West set out again; and they went aboard
ship with all their men, and they sailed from Cair Andros
down Anduin to Osgiliath; and there they remained for one
day; and the day after they came to the green fields of the