The Death of Saint Brendan

by J.R.R. Tolkien

At last out of the deep seas he passed,

and mist rolled on the shore;

under clouded moon the waves were loud,

as the laden ship him bore

to Ireland, back to wood and mire,

to the tower tall and grey,

where the knell of Cluian-ferta’s bell

tolled in the green Galway.

Where Shannon down to Lough Derg ran

under a rainclad sky

Saint Brendan came to his journey’s end

to await his hour to die.

‘O! tell me, father, for I loved you well,

if still you have words for me,

of things strange in the remembering

in the long and lonely sea,

of islands by deep spells beguiled

where dwell the Elven-kind:

in seven long years the road to Heaven

or the Living Land did you find?’

‘The things I have seen, the many things,

have long now faded far;

only three come clear now back to me:

a Cloud, a Tree, a Star.

We sailed for a year and a day and hailed

no field nor coast of mean;

no boat nor bird saw we ever afloat

for forty days and ten.

We saw no sun at set or dawn,

but a dun cloud lay ahead,

and a drumming there was like thunder coming

and a gleam of fiery red.

Upreared from sea to cloud then sheer

a shoreless mountain stood;

its sides were black from the sullen tide

to the red lining of its hood.

No cloak of cloud, no lowering smoke,

no looming storm of thunder

in the world of men saw I ever unfurled

like the pall that we passed under.

We turned away, and we left astern

the rumbling and the gloom;

then the smoking cloud asunder broke,

and we saw the Tower of Doom:

in its ashen head was a crown of red,

where the fishes flamed and fell.

Tall as a column in High Heaven’s hall,

its feet were deep as Hell;

grounded in chasms the water drowned

and buried long ago,

it stands, I ween, in forgotten lands

where the kings of kings lie low.

We sailed then on, till the wind had failed,

and we toiled then with the oar,

and hunger an thirst us sorely wrung,

and we sang our psalms no more.

A land at last with a silver strand

at the end of strenght we found;

the waves were singing in pillared caves

and pearls lay on the ground;

and steep the shores went upward leaping

to slopes of green and gold,

and a stream out of rich and teeming

through a coomb of shadow rolled.

Through gates of stone we rowed in haste,

and passed and left the sea;

and silence like dew fell in that isle,

and holy it seemed to be.

As a green cup, deep in a brim of green,

that with wine the white sun fills

was the land we found, and we saw there stand

on a laund between the hills

a tree more fair than ever I deemed

might climb in Paradise;

its foot was like a great tower’s root,

it height beyond men’s eyes;

so wide its branches, the least could hold

in shade an acre long,

and they rose as steep as mountain-snows

those boughs so broad and strong;

for white as a winter to my sight

the leaves of that tree were,

they grew more close than swan-wing plumes,

all long and soft and fair.

We deemed then, maybe, as in a dream,

that time had passed away

and our journey ended; for no return

we hoped, but there to stay.

In the silence of that hollow isle,

in the stillness, then we sang-

softly us seemed, but the sound aloft

like a pealing organ rang.

Then trembled the tree from crown to stem;

from the limbs the leaves in air

as white birds fled in wheeling flight,

and left the branches bare.

From the the sky came dropping down on high

a music not of bird,

not voice of man, nor angel’s voice;

but maybe there is a third

fair kindred in the world yet lingers

beyond the foundered land.

Yet steep are the seas and the waters deep

beyond the White-tree Strand.’

‘O! stay now father! There’s more to say.

But two things you have told:

The Tree, the Cloud; but you spoke of three.

The Star in mind you hold?’

‘The Star? Yes, I saw it, high and far,

at the parting of the ways,

a light on the edge of the Outer Night

like silver set ablaze,

where the round world plunges steeply down,

but on the old road goes,

as an unseen bridge that on the arches runs

to coasts than no man knows.’

‘But men say, father that ere the end

you went where none have been.

I would here you tell me, father dear,

of the last land you have seen.’

‘In my mind the Star I still can find,

and the parting of the seas,

and the breath as sweet and keen as death

that was borne upon the breeze.

But where they they bloom those flowers fair,

in what air or land they grow,

what words beyond the world I heard,

if you would seek to know,

in a boat then, brother, far afloat

you must labour in the sea,

and find for yourself things out of mind:

you will learn no more of me.’

In Ireland, over wood and mire,

in the tower tall and grey,

the knell of Cluain-ferta’s bell

was tolling in green Galway.

Saint Brendan had come to his life’s end

under a rainclad sky,

and journeyed whence no ship returns,

and his bones in Ireland lie.

(from The Notion Club Papers: History of Middle Earth, vol. 9, 1992 edition. )