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emprisoned in the crown of hate.
Lo! through the grinning portals dread
sudden a shadow swooped and fled;
and Beren gasped—he lay alone,
with 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
a 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
slow 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
of 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.
My 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,
and 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,
a 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
beneath the darkness of that seat,
beneath the shadow of those feet.
Tinúviel spake, a shrill, thin, sound
piercing those silences profound:
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