Lament for Geodora
Below is the full text of the lament, translated to the common tongue by me. As in all poetry translation, significant liberties have been taken to ensure that the meter functions. It is impossible to convey the shriek of metal on stone into our language.
If you ever in your life get the opportunity, the feeling (yes, I do mean feeling) of a choir of dwarfs performing this piece could shake mountains. It evades all description.
– Loret of the Plains.
I
stone-roots are shaken / the stone-heart is sore
the deep-pulse is silent / we sense him no more
Geodora the granite-born / gone from the ground
his ground-hum is lost / a lack of all sound
a tremor of trouble in the throne-hall of stone
the kingsvein is fractured / the king sits alone
II
where now the war-hand / the wield-heavy might?
stone-shield of our people in the shadow-ed fight
his cliff-face fresh sharpen'd / chisel'd and hammer'd
eager for the axe-storm / his step never stammer'd
he stood as a bulwark / a break against blades
now his life-lode is shattered to sorrowful shades
III
no gold-gleam he gnaws now / no gem-meal he grinds
no bright-vein of silver his spirit now finds
he fed on the earths-hoard / on quartzes and ore
but the battle-dew drank him / he feasts nevermore
that last echo of ending / a terrible tear
left a fault-line of feeling / a bedrock of fear
IV
our prayer-tremors perish / they pierce no high hall
on our Great Unhearing do hoarse curses fall
the elf-tricks of spell-craft / with swift airy charms
find no hold on flint-flesh / bring no help to our arms
for the earth gives no answer / the sky is but stone
and the one that we lost / we have lost him alone
V
thus carve we his story in cold cavern wall
a memory-seam lasting / lest the mountain should fall
let the deep-delvers mourn him with the strike of the pick
for the kingdom is quieted / the earths-blood runs thick
with a sorrow-stone silence / a stillness too deep
our brother is earth-bound / in endless stone-sleep
VI
stone-roots are shaken / the stone-heart is sore
the deep-pulse is silent / we sense him no more
Geodora the granite-born / gone from the ground
his ground-hum is lost / a lack of all sound
a tremor of trouble in the throne-hall of stone
the kingsvein is fractured / the king sits alone