| Thus those brave in dread down the bare hillside | |
| towards the camp clambered creeping wary, | 1115 |
| and dared that deed in days long past | |
| whose glory has gone through the gates of earth, | |
| and songs have sung unceasing ringing | |
| wherever the Elves in ancient places | |
| had light or laughter in the later world. | 1120 |
| With breath bated on the brink of the dale | |
| they stood and stared through stealthy shadows, | |
| till they saw where the circle of sleepless eyes | |
| was broken; with hearts beating dully | |
| they passed the places where pierced and bleeding | 1125 |
| the wolves weltered by wingéd death | |
| unseen smitten; as smoke noiseless | |
| they slipped silent through the slumbering throngs | |
| as shadowy wraiths shifting vaguely | |
| from gloom to gloom, till the Gods brought them | 1130 |
| and the craft and cunning of the keen huntsman | |
| to Túrin the tall where he tumbled lay | |
| with face downward in the filthy mire, | |
| and his feet were fettered, and fast in bonds | |
| anguish enchained his arms behind him. | 1135 |
| There he slept or swooned, as sunk in oblivion | |
| by drugs of darkness deadly blended; | |
| he heard not their whispers; no hope stirred him | |
| nor the deep despair of his dreams fathomed; | |
| to awake his wit no words availed. | 1140 |
| No blade would bite on the bonds he wore, | |
| though Flinding felt for the forgéd knife | |
| of dwarfen steel, his dagger prizéd, | |
| that at waist he wore awake or sleeping, | |
| whose edge would eat through iron noiseless | 1145 |
| as a clod of clay is cleft by the share. | |
| It was wrought by wrights in the realms of the East, | |
| in black Belegost, by the bearded Dwarves | |
| of troth unmindful; it betrayed him now | |
| from its sheath slipping as o’er shaggy slades | 1150 |
| and roughhewn rocks their road they wended. | |
| ‘We must bear him back as best we may,’ | |
| said Beleg, bending his broad shoulders. | |
| Then the head he lifted of Húrin’s offspring, | |
| and Flinding go-Fuilin the feet claspéd; | 1155 |
| and doughty that deed, for in days long gone | |
| though Men were of mould less mighty builded | |
| ere the earth’s goodness from the Elves they drew, | |
| though the Elfin kindreds ere old was the sun | |
| were of might unminished, nor the moon haunted | 1160 |
| faintly fading as formed of shadows | |
| in places unpeopled, yet peers they were not | |
| in bone and flesh and body’s fashioning, | |
| and Túrin was tallest of the ten races | |
| that in Hithlum’s hills their homes builded. | 1165 |
| Like a log they lifted his limbs mighty, | |
| and straining staggered with stealth and fear, | |
| with bodies bending and bones aching, | |
| from the cruel dreaming of the camp of dread, | |
| where spearmen drowsed sprawling drunken | 1170 |
| by their moon-blades keen with murder whetted | |
| mid their shaven shafts in sheaves piléd. | |
| Now Beleg the brave backward led them, | |
| but his foot fumbled and he fell thudding | |
| with Túrin atop of him, and trembling stumbled | 1175 |
| Flinding forward; there frozen lying | |
| long while they listened for alarm stirring, | |
| for hue and cry, and their hearts cowered; | |
| but unbroken the breathing of the bands sleeping, | |
| as darkness deepened to dead midnight, | 1180 |
| and the lifeless hour when the loosened soul | |
| oft sheds the shackles of the shivering flesh. | |
| Then dared their dread to draw its breath, | |
| and they found their feet in the fouléd earth, | |
| and bent they both their backs once more | 1185 |
| to their task of toil, for Túrin woke not. | |
| There the huntsman’s hand was hurt deeply, | |
| as he groped on the ground, by a gleaming point – | |
| ’twas Dailir his dart dearly prizéd | |
| he had found by his foot in fragments twain, | 1190 |
| and with barbs bended: it broke at last | |
| neath his body falling. It boded ill. | |
| As in dim dreaming, and dazed with horror, | |
| they won their way with weary slowness, | |
| foot by footstep, till fate them granted | 1195 |
| the leaguer at last of those lairs to pass, | |
| and their burden laid they, breathless gasping, | |
| on bare-bosméd earth, and abode a while, | |
| ere by winding ways they won their path | |
| up the slanting slopes with silent labour, | 1200 |
| with spended strength sprawling to cast them | |
| in the darkling dell neath the deep thicket. | |
| Then sought his sword, and songs of magic | |
| o’er its eager edge with Elfin voice | |
| there Beleg murmured, while bluely glimmered | 1205 |
| the lamp of Flinding neath the lacéd thorns. | |
| There wondrous wove he words of sharpness, | |
| and the names of knives and Gnomish blades | |
| he uttered o’er it: even Ogbar’s spear | |
| and the glaive of Gaurin whose gleaming stroke | 1210 |
| did rive the rocks of Rodrim’s hall; | |
| the sword of Saithnar, and the silver blades | |
| of the enchanted children of chains forgéd | |
| in their deep dungeon; the dirk of Nargil, | |
| the knife of the North in Nogrod smithied; | 1215 |
| the sweeping sickle of the slashing tempest, | |
| the lambent lightning’s leaping falchion | |
| even Celeg Aithorn that shall cleave the world. | |
| Then whistling whirled he the whetted sword-blade | |
| and three times three it threshed the gloom, | 1220 |
| till flame was kindled flickering strangely | |
| like licking firelight in the lamp’s glimmer | |
| blue and baleful at the blade’s edges. | |
| Lo! a leering laugh lone and dreadful | |
| by the wind wafted wavered nigh them; | 1225 |
| their limbs were loosened in listening horror; | |
| they fancied the feet of foes approaching, | |
| for the horns hearkening of the hunt afoot | |
| in the rustling murmur of roving breezes. | |
| Then quickly curtained with its covering pelt | 1230 |
was the lantern’s light, and leaping
|
