by white hands woven, like a smoke,
like all-bewildering, all-enthralling, all-enfolding evening, falling
1585from lifted arms, as forth she stepped across those awful eyes she swept,
a shadow and a mist of dreams
whereon entangled starlight gleams.
‘Sleep, O unhappy, tortured thrall!
1590Thou woebegotten, fail and fall down, down from anguish, hatred, pain, from lust, from hunger, bond and chain, to that oblivion, dark and deep,
the well, the lightless pit of sleep!
1595For one brief hour escape the net, the dreadful doom of life forget!’
His eyes were quenched, his limbs were loosed; he fell like running steer that noosed and tripped grows crashing to the ground.
1600Deathlike, moveless, without a sound outstretched he lay, as lightning stroke had felled a huge o’ershadowing oak.
******
Into the vast and echoing gloom,
more dread than many-tunnelled tomb
1605in labyrinthine pyramid where everlasting death is hid
down awful corridors that wind
down to a menace dark enshrined; down to the mountain’s roots profound, 1610devoured, tormented, bored and ground by seething vermin spawned of stone;
down to the depths they went alone.
The arch behind of twilit shade
they saw recede and dwindling fade;
1615the thunderous forges’ rumour grew, a burning wind there roaring blew
foul vapours up from gaping holes.
Huge shapes there stood like carven trolls enormous hewn of blasted rock
1620to forms that mortal likeness mock; monstrous and menacing, entombed,
at every turn they silent loomed
in fitful glares that leaped and died.
There hammers clanged, and tongues there cried 1625with sound like smitten stone; there wailed faint from far under, called and failed amid the iron clink of chain
voices of captives put to pain.
Loud rose a din of laughter hoarse,
1630self-loathing yet without remorse; loud came a singing harsh and fierce
like swords of terror souls to pierce.
Red was the glare through open doors
of firelight mirrored on brazen floors, 1635and up the arches towering clomb to glooms unguessed, to vaulted dome swathed in wavering smokes and steams
stabbed with flickering lightning-gleams.
To Morgoth’s hall, where dreadful feast 1640he held, and drank the blood of beast and lives of Men, they stumbling came: their eyes were dazed with smoke and flame.
The pillars, reared like monstrous shores to bear earth’s overwhelming floors,
1645were devil-carven, shaped with skill such as unholy dreams doth fill:
they towered like trees into the air,
whose trunks are rooted in despair,
whose shade is death, whose fruit is bane, 1650whose boughs like serpents writhe in pain.
Beneath them ranged with spear and sword
stood Morgoth’s sable-armoured horde:
the fire on blade and boss of shield
was red as blood on stricken field.
1655Beneath a monstrous column loomed the throne of Morgoth, and the doomed
and dying gasped upon the floor:
his hideous footstool, rape of war.
About him sat his awful thanes,
1660the Balrog-lords with fiery manes, redhanded, mouthed with fangs of steel; devouring wolves were crouched at heel.
And o’er the host of hell there shone
with a cold radiance, clear and wan,
1665the Silmarils, the gems of fate, emprisoned in the crown of hate.
Lo! through the grinning portals dread
sudden a shadow swooped and fled;
and Beren gasped—he lay alone,
1670with crawling belly on the stone: a form bat-wingéd, silent, flew
where the huge pillared branches grew, amid the smokes and mounting steams.
And as on the margin of dark dreams
1675a dim-felt shadow unseen grows to cloud of vast unease, and woes
foreboded, nameless, roll like doom
upon the soul, so in that gloom
the voices fell, and laughter died
1680slow to silence many-eyed.
A nameless doubt, a shapeless fear,
had entered in their caverns drear
and grew, and towered above them cowed, hearing in heart the trumpets loud
1685of gods forgotten. Morgoth spoke, and thunderous the silence broke:
‘Shadow, descend! And do not think
to cheat mine eyes! In vain to shrink
from thy Lord’s gaze, or seek to hide.
1690My will by none may be defied.
Hope nor escape doth here await
those that unbidden pass my gate.
Descend! ere anger blast thy wing, thou foolish, frail, bat-shapen thing, 1695and yet not bat within! Come down!’
Slow-wheeling o’er his iron crown,
reluctantly, shivering and small,
Beren there saw the shadow fall,
and droop before the hideous throne,
1700a weak and trembling thing, alone.
And as thereon great Morgoth bent
his darkling gaze, he shuddering went, belly to earth, the cold sweat dank
upon his fell, and crawling shrank
1705beneath the darkness of that seat, beneath the shadow of those feet.
Tinúviel spake, a shrill, thin, sound
piercing those silences profound:
‘A lawful errand here me brought;
1710from Th?’s dark mansions have I sought, from Taur-na-Fuin’s shade I fare
to stand before thy mighty chair!’
‘Thy name, thou shrieking waif, thy name!
Tidings enough from Th? there came
1715but short while since. What would he now?
Why send such messenger as thou?’
‘Thuringwethil I am, who cast
a shadow o’er the face aghast
of the sallow moon in the doomed land
1720of shivering Beleriand!’
‘Liar art thou, who shalt not weave
deceit before mine eyes. Now leave
thy form and raiment false, and stand
revealed, and delivered to my hand!’
1725There came a slow and shuddering change: the batlike raiment dark and strange
was loosed, and slowly shrank and fell quivering. She stood revealed in hell.
About her slender shoulders hung
1730her shadowy hair, and round her clung her garment dark, where glimmered pale the starlight caught in magic veil.
Dim dreams and faint oblivious sleep
fell softly thence, in dungeons deep
1735an odour stole of elven-flowers from elven-dells where silver showers
drip softly through the evening air;
and round there crawled with greedy stare dark shapes of snuffling hunger dread.
1740With arms upraised and drooping head then softly she began to sing
a theme of sleep and slumbering,
wandering, woven with deeper spell
than songs wherewith in ancient dell
1745Melian did once the twilight fill, profound and fathomless, and still.
The fires of Angband flared and died,
smouldered into darkness; through the wide and hollow halls there rolled unfurled 1750the shadows of the underworld.
All movement stayed, and all sound ceased, save vaporous breath of Orc and beast.
One fire in darkness still abode:
the lidless eyes of Morgoth glowed;
1755one sound the breathing silence broke: the mirthless voice of Morgoth spoke.
‘So Lúthien, so Lúthien,
a liar like all Elves and Men!
Yet welcome, welcome, to my hall!
1760I have a use for every thrall.
What news of Thingol in his hole
shy lurking like a timid vole?
What folly fresh is in his mind