| Then beat in his breast, foreboding evil, | 965 |
| with dread unwonted the dauntless heart | |
| of Beleg the brave. With blanchéd cheeks | |
| in faded fern and the feathery leaves | |
| of brown bracken they buried them deep, | |
| where dank and dark a ditch was cloven | 970 |
| on the wood’s borders by waters oozing, | |
| dripping down to die in the drouth below. | |
| Yet hardly were they hid when a host to view | |
| round a dark turning in the dusky shadows | |
| came swinging sudden with a swift thudding | 975 |
| of feet after feet on fallen leaves. | |
| In rank on rank of ruthless spears | |
| that war-host went; weary stumbling | |
| countless captives, cruelly laden | |
| with bloodstained booty, in bonds of iron | 980 |
| they haled behind them, and held in ward | |
| by the wolf-riders and the wolves of Hell. | |
| Their road of ruin was a-reek with tears: | |
| many a hall and homestead, many a hidden refuge | |
| of Gnomish lords by night beleaguered | 985 |
| their o’ermastering might of mirth bereft, | |
| and fair things fouled, and fields curdled | |
| with the bravest blood of the beaten people. | |
| To an army of war was the Orc-band waxen | |
| that Blodrin Bor’s son to his bane guided | 990 |
| to the wood-marches, by the welded hosts | |
| homeward hurrying to the halls of mourning | |
| swiftly swollen to a sweeping plague. | |
| Like a throbbing thunder in the threatening deeps | |
| of cavernous clouds o’ercast with gloom | 995 |
| now swelled on a sudden a song most dire, | |
| and their hellward hymn their home greeted; | |
| flung from the foremost of the fierce spearmen, | |
| who viewed mid vapours vast and sable | |
| the threefold peaks of Thangorodrim, | 1000 |
| it rolled rearward, rumbling darkly, | |
| like drums in distant dungeons empty. | |
| Then a werewolf howled; a word was shouted | |
| like steel on stone; and stiffly raised | |
| their spears and swords sprang up thickly | 1005 |
| as the wild wheatfields of the wargod’s realm | |
| with points that palely pricked the twilight. | |
| As by wind wafted then waved they all, | |
| and bowed, as the bands with beating measured | |
| moved on mirthless from the mirky woods, | 1010 |
| from the topless trunks of Taur-na-Fuin, | |
| neath the leprous limbs of the leaning gate. | |
| Then Beleg the bowman in bracken cowering, | |
| on the loathly legions through the leaves peering, | |
| saw Túrin the tall as he tottered forward | 1015 |
| neath the whips of the Orcs as they whistled o’er him; | |
| and rage arose in his wrathful heart, | |
| and piercing pity outpoured his tears. | |
| The hymn was hushed; the host vanished | |
| down the hellward slopes of the hill beyond; | 1020 |
| and silence sank slow and gloomy | |
| round the trunks of the trees of Taur-na-Fuin, | |
| and nethermost night drew near outside. | |
| ‘Follow me, Flinding, from the forest curséd! | |
| Let us haste to his help, to Hell if need be | 1025 |
| or to death by the darts of the dread Glamhoth!’: | |
| and Beleg bounded from the bracken madly, | |
| like a deer driven by dogs baying | |
| from his hiding in the hills and hollow places; | |
| and Flinding followed fearful after him | 1030 |
| neath the yawning gate, through yew-thickets, | |
| through bogs and bents and bushes shrunken, | |
| till they reached the rocks and the riven moorlands | |
| and friendless fells falling darkly | |
| to the dusty dunes of Dor-na-Fauglith. | 1035 |
| In a cup outcarven on the cold hillside, | |
| whose broken brink was bleakly fringed | |
| with bended bushes bowed in anguish | |
| from the North-wind’s knife, beneath them far | |
| the feasting camp of their foes was laid; | 1040 |
| the fiery flare of fuming torches, | |
| and black bodies in the blaze they saw | |
| crossing countlessly, and cries they heard | |
| and the hollow howling of hungry wolves. | |
| Then a moon mounted o’er the mists riding, | 1045 |
| and the keen radiance of the cold moonshine | |
| the shadows sharpened in the sheer hollows, | |
| and slashed the slopes with slanting blackness; | |
| in wreaths uprising the reek of fires | |
| was touched to tremulous trails of silver. | 1050 |
| Then the fires faded, and their foemen slumbered | |
| in a sleep of surfeit. No sentinel watched, | |
| nor guards them girdled – what good were it | |
| to watch wakeful in those withered regions | |
| neath Eiglir Engrin, whence the eyes of Bauglir | 1055 |
| gazed unclosing from the gates of Hell? | |
| Did not werewolves’ eyes unwinking gleam | |
| in the wan moonlight – the wolves that sleep not, | |
| that sit in circles with slavering tongues | |
| round camp or clearing of the cruel Glamhoth? | 1060 |
| Then was Beleg a-shudder, and the unblinking eyes | |
| nigh chilled his marrow and chained his flesh | |
| in fear unfathomed, as flat to earth | |
| by a boulder he lay. Lo! black cloud-drifts | |
| surged up like smoke from the sable North, | 1065 |
| and the sheen was shrouded of the shivering moon; | |
| the wind came wailing from the woeful mountains, | |
| and the heath unhappy hissed and whispered; | |
| and the moans came faint of men in torment | |
| in the camp accursed. His quiver rattled | 1070 |
| as he found his feet and felt his bow, | |
| hard horn-pointed, by hands of cunning | |
| of black yew wrought; with bears’ sinews | |
| it was stoutly strung; strength to bend it | |
| had nor Man nor Elf save the magic helped him | 1075 |
| that Beleg the bowman now bore alone. | |
| No arrows of the Orcs so unerring wingéd | |
| as his shaven shafts that could shoot to a mark | |
| that was seen but in glance ere gloom seized it. | |
| Then Dailir he drew, his dart beloved; | 1080 |
| howso far fared it, or fell unnoted, | |
| unsought he found it with sound feathers | |
| and barbs unbroken (till it broke at last); | |
| and fleet bade he fly that feather-pinioned | |
snaketonguéd
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