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singing until the midnight hour.
Swift as the wolvish coat he wore,
Beren 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
and 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,
and 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;
of 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
when 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.
A 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
a 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
far 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,
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