and thither, perchance, we three shall wend, and meet again before the end.’
1215They stood and marvelled thus to hear his mighty tongue so deep and clear;
then sudden he vanished from their sight even at the onset of the night.
His dreadful counsel then they took,
1220and their own gracious forms forsook; in werewolf fell and batlike wing
prepared to robe them, shuddering.
With elvish magic Lúthien wrought,
lest raiment foul with evil fraught
1225to dreadful madness drive their hearts; and there she wrought with elvish arts a strong defence, a binding power,
singing until the midnight hour.
Swift as the wolvish coat he wore,
1230Beren lay slavering on the floor, redtongued and hungry; but there lies
a pain and longing in his eyes,
a look of horror as he sees
a batlike form crawl to its knees
1235and drag its creased and creaking wings.
Then howling under moon he springs
fourfooted, swift, from stone to stone from hill to plain—but not alone:
a dark shape down the slope doth skim, 1240and wheeling flitters over him.
Ashes and dust and thirsty dune
withered and dry beneath the moon,
under the cold and shifting air
sifting and sighing, bleak and bare;
1245of blistered stones and gasping sand, of splintered bones was built that land, o’er which now slinks with powdered fell and hanging tongue a shape of hell.
Many parching leagues lay still before
1250when sickly day crept back once more; many choking miles lay stretched ahead when shivering night once more was spread with doubtful shadow and ghostly sound that hissed and passed o’er dune and mound.
1255A second morning in cloud and reek struggled, when stumbling, blind and weak, a wolvish shape came staggering forth
and reached the foothills of the North; upon its back there folded lay
1260a crumpled thing that blinked at day.
The rocks were reared like bony teeth,
and claws that grasped from opened sheath, on either side the mournful road
that onward led to that abode
1265far up within the Mountain dark with tunnels drear and portals stark.
They crept within a scowling shade
and cowering darkly down them laid.
Long lurked they there beside the path, 1270and shivered, dreaming of Doriath, of laughter and music and clean air,
in fluttered leaves birds singing fair.
They woke, and felt the trembling sound,
the beating echo far underground
1275shake beneath them, the rumour vast of Morgoth’s forges; and aghast
they heard the stamp of stony feet
that shod with iron went down that street: the Orcs went forth to rape and war,
1280and Balrog captains marched before.
stirred, and under cloud and shade at eve stepped forth, and no more stayed; as dark things on dark errand bent
up the long slopes in haste they went.
1285Ever the sheer cliffs rose beside, where birds of carrion sat and cried;
and chasms black and smoking yawned,
whence writhing serpent-shapes were spawned; until at last in that huge gloom,
1290heavy as overhanging doom, that weighs on Thangorodrim’s foot
like thunder at the mountain’s root,
they came, as to a sombre court
walled with great towers, fort on fort 1295of cliffs embattled, to that last plain that opens, abysmal and inane
before he final topless wall
of Bauglir’s immeasurable hall,
whereunder looming awful waits
1300the gigantic shadow of his gates.
******
In that vast shadow once of yore
Fingolfin stood: his shield he bore
with field of heaven’s blue and star
of crystal shining pale afar.
1305In overmastering wrath and hate desperate he smote upon that gate,
the Gnomish king, there standing lone, while endless fortresses of stone
engulfed the thin clear ringing keen
1310of silver horn on baldric green.
His hopeless challenge dauntless cried Fingolfin there: ‘Come, open wide,
dark king, your ghastly brazen doors!
Come forth, whom earth and heaven abhors!
1315Come forth, O monstrous craven lord and fight with thine own hand and sword, thou wielder of hosts of banded thralls, thou tyrant leaguered with strong walls, thou foe of Gods and elvish race!
1320I wait thee here. Come! Show thy face!’
Then Morgoth came. For the last time
in those great wars he dared to climb
from subterranean throne profound,
the rumour of his feet a sound
1325of rumbling earthquake underground.
Black-armoured, towering, iron-crowned he issued forth; his mighty shield
a vast unblazoned sable field
with shadow like a thundercloud;
1330and o’er the gleaming king it bowed, as huge aloft like mace he hurled
that hammer of the underworld,
Grond. Clanging to ground it tumbled
down like a thunder-bolt, and crumbled 1335the rocks beneath it; smoke upstarted, a pit yawned, and a fire darted.
Fingolfin like a shooting light
beneath a cloud, a stab of white,
sprang then aside, and Ringil drew
1340like ice that gleameth cold and blue, his sword devised of elvish skill
to pierce the flesh with deadly chill.
With seven wounds it rent his foe,
and seven mighty cries of woe
1345rang in the mountains, and the earth quook, and Angband’s trembling armies shook.
Yet Orcs would after laughing tell
of the duel at the gates of hell;
though elvish song thereof was made
1350ere this but one—when sad was laid the mighty king in barrow high,
and Thorondor, Eagle of the sky,
the dreadful tidings brought and told
to mourning Elfinesse of old.
1355Thrice was Fingolfin with great blows to his knees beaten, thrice he rose
still leaping up beneath the cloud
aloft to hold star-shining, proud,
his stricken shield, his sundered helm, 1360that dark nor might could overwhelm till all the earth was burst and rent
in pits about him. He was spent.
His feet stumbled. He fell to wreck upon the ground, and on his neck
1365a foot like rooted hills was set, and he was crushed—not conquered yet;
one last despairing stroke he gave:
the mighty foot pale Ringil clave
about the heel, and black the blood
1370gushed as from smoking fount in flood.
Halt goes for ever from that stroke
great Morgoth; but the king he broke,
and would have hewn and mangled thrown to wolves devouring. Lo! from throne
1375that Manw? bade him build on high, on peak unscaled beneath the sky,
Morgoth to watch, now down there swooped Thorondor the King of Eagles, stooped, and rending beak of gold he smote
1380in Bauglir’s face, then up did float on pinions thirty fathoms wide
bearing away, though loud they cried,
the mighty corse, the Elven-king;
and where the mountains make a ring
1385far to the south about that plain where after Gondolin did reign,
embattled city, at great height
upon a dizzy snowcap white
in mounded cairn the mighty dead
1390he laid upon the mountain’s head.
Never Orc nor demon after dared
that pass to climb, o’er which there stared Fingolfin’s high and holy tomb,
till Gondolin’s appointed doom.
1395Thus Bauglir earned the furrowed scar that his dark countenance doth mar,