We've been three days in Dol Amroth -- turns out I been saying it wrong all this time -- and making to leave in the morning. It's a lovely place, as sweet and relaxing as a summer day when all the chores are done. But lingering here, restful as it is, makes me long to be home, and to see the folk there I miss so dear. We're as far from home as I ever been, from either of both places ever I called home, and as far as our journey goes. If this city were more near, it'd be a place to bring people. I'd love to see how Beoda liked it, or show it to Miss Brynleigh, or Miss Baker, or even Miss Sareva. But it's just too far to visit.
There's only one thing, though, in the whole city what puts me in mind of the Elves, what I were told were them what made it. Otherwise, everything looks to me like a city of Gondor. Maybe the hand of the Elves is everywhere and I'm just too much of a dunderhead to see it. Maybe the Men been here so long they rebuilt and covered over most the things as would speak of the shaping of Elven hands. Maybe I just ain't been to the right places. Maybe I misunderstood 'bout it being made by Elves. Because it seems like a city of Men to me, top to bottom.
It's as beautiful a city as ever I seen, though, excepting them as the Elves still dwell in. It's high, with long stairways climbing to wide open places even higher, where you can see out over the Sea for farther even than you can see across the Mark on a clear day, with that invigorating and briny Sea breeze coming over you all the time, making you feel at once like you could do anything, and like you don't got to do nothing. There's gardens in it so big as you can forget, in the middle, that there's walls of white stone around you, and dream you're out in the woods. There's a harbor what's circled with piers and walls with ships gliding in and out all day and into the night. There's halls covered in gilt and silver and delicate carvings, some with fountains indoors, some so large you could put half of Bree in them. Most impressive of these is the library, which got more books in it than probably there's people in all of Bree-land and the Shire put together, and you can walk and walk in it and there's just another level with another shelf with more books. It's not just bigger than the library I visited in Dale, it's nearly bigger than Dale itself.
But as open and spacious and grand it is, it all feels much like Mundburg were, made by the hands of Men, skilled hands what cared about their craft and put long years, many lifetimes, but still, like Men. In Imladris, and even more in Dwimordene, you feel like the city and the woods around it are one thing, like the city's just been slipped into the trees like the weft into the warp. They're beautiful but they're not proud; they just are where they are, not trying to draw your eye to them, confident that they don't got to. But Dol Amroth stands like a man in shining armor holding a sword aloft, crying out, look at me, look at how noble I am! That more than anything is what makes me feel like it's a city of Men, not of Elves, no matter who laid the first stones.
There is one thing that feels Elven, though, even if it's also proud. Back in the Dwimordene there were mighty fountains, with water pouring from one pool down to another, and the starlight shining off every gem and every contour. In Dol Amroth there's a court got a fountain what looks like someone saw those and said, "I can do that bigger, much bigger!" It's probably big as the square in front of the Pony, and there's birds living in it what look like stretched-out grouse to me, probably would taste like it too, but the folk of Dol Amroth call them swans and they're clearly not for eating. The fountain's got layer upon layer and water trickling everywhere. It's sure like to the ones I saw in Dwimordene, but it's so busy being grand that it somehow don't feel like those. It's just too proud of itself.
When we leave in the morning it'll be a few days afore we leave behind the breezes from the Sea, and I reckon I'll miss those even more than I do this town. But now my thoughts are on the way home, and it's time for me to follow after them.
