it's actually not clear that all the elves has either faded or left by the
fourth age. sam tells his children in the epilogue to LOTR (during the fourth
age) that Merry has visited Lothlorien, and he says that, though the Lady is
gone, there are still elves who dwell in the Golden Wood. We also know
that Legolas brought his kin from the Woodland Realm to Ithilien at the
beginning of the Fourth Age--Legolas didn't leave Middle-earth until year 120
of the Fourth Age, right after Aragorn's death. Going even further if it
matters, Celeborn dwelt in Rivendell with his grandsons for sometime into the
Fourth Age, but Tolkien says that with him, "went the last living memory of the
Elder Days in Middle-earth" (LOTR
prologue).
________________________________________
"Then the music drifted from me and
that music losed its bands--
Far, far-off, conches calling--lo! I
stood in the sweet lands,
And the meadows were about me where
the weeping willows grew,
Where the long grass stirred beside me
and my feet were drenched with dew,
Only the reeds were rustling, but a
mist lay on the streams
Like a sea-roke drawn far inland, like
a shred of salt sea-dreams.
'Twas in the Land of Willows that I
heard th' unfathomed breath
Of the Horns of Ylmir calling--and
shall hear them till my death."
