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at every turn they silent loomed
in fitful glares that leaped and died.
There hammers clanged, and tongues there cried
with 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,
self-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,
and 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
he 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,
were 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,
whose 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.
Beneath 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,
the 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,
the Silmarils, the gems of fate,
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