A Fallen City
An Alliterative Poem
The writing of this short set of verses coincided with my reading of The Fall of Gondolin, which the great guardian and steward Christopher Tolkien edited and published on its own in 2018, honouring his father one last time, at the age of 93. (It was previously included in a more truncated form in The Silmarillion, but the separate version has more flesh.) I began writing the poem before I started reading the story, but I’m afraid the story overtook my writing, and coerced me into telling a very similar story in verse. Forgive me for not following strictly the form of ancient alliterative verse - next time I write one it will be bound more tightly. Here is the fall of the city:
