Have you ever seen the Sea?
Have you ever walked the shores of Middle-earth, and felt damp sand beneath your feet? Have you ever held the incredible smoothness of a water-smoothed stone in your palm? Have you ever felt the tide lap at your feet and run away in rivulets as you stand, transfixed by the ever-changing colours of the water?
Have you ever looked at a shell so closely that every swirl becomes engraved on your memory; or observed how the polished milkiness of the interior blends to pale mauve veined with indigo? Have you ever watched as the light on the water sparkles like a thousand prisms, almost blinding in its reflected beauty?
Have you ever smelt the bitter tang of salt carried on the air, and known it to be the scent of home?
Have you ever listened to the swish and ripple of waves as they break foaming upon the beach? Have you ever heard the white gulls call, and in their harsh cries heard echoes of other, fairer voices calling to you from across a distant shore?

It was the hoarse wailing of the gulls that first disturbed my peace, years ago on the plain of Anduin, wakening the Sea-longing that is perilous to stir, that has never been stilled.
Yet here I have stayed, never at peace, ever longing for Valinor, ever hearing the white shores calling, beckoning me to the country that lies far across the Sea...Eress�a, land of my people forever. Here I have remained, watching as generations of men are born, grow to strength and wither, waiting as the world about me seems to diminish and grow pale, without myself marking the passing years. Here I have lingered, watching the dominion of Men spreading across this Middle-earth, while ship after ship bears away the last of my kindred to the light of the Undying Lands.

The Mithlond is deserted now, a town inhabited only by memories and echoes of the many yesterdays it has seen and the many ships that have left its quays in sixty centuries.

L�rien is empty of song and light; Imladris is forsaken by its lord, and the halls are no longer filled with tales and laughter-only with remnants of history from Ages gone.
Perhaps in future days, Men shall come unheeding to the strongholds of the Eldar and claim them, but for now they are abandoned, an ever present reminder to those who cling to the past that with the coming of a new king, the Age of Men is established in full, and the long years of the Elves are indeed over at last.

Through the final, swiftly-fading days of the Eldar I have remained, knowing that the time is not yet come. Now, however, my life here is completed. Almost all those of mortal race whom I have loved have passed away, in one manner or another, and I finally stand by the Sea that until this hour I have not seen. Today, at last, I too shall follow the longing of my heart, and shall take the last grey ship, into the West.