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efore the dawn. Ere day was dead<br />
to Aeluin at last he came,<br />
as the red sun westward sank in flame;<br />
but Aeluin was red with blood,<br />
red were the stones and trampled mud.<br />
Black in the birches sat a-row<br />
the raven and the carrion crow;<br />
wet were their nebs, and dark the meat<br />
that dripped beneath their griping feet.<br />
One croaked: ‘Ha, ha, he comes too late!’<br />
‘Ha, ha!’ they answered, ‘ha! too late!’<br />
There Beren laid his father’s bones<br />
in haste beneath a cairn of stones;<br />
no graven rune nor word he wrote<br />
o’er Barahir, but thrice he smote<br />
the topmost stone, and thrice aloud<br />
he cried his name. ‘Thy death’, he vowed,<br />
‘I will avenge. Yea, though my fate<br />
should lead at last to Angband’s gate.’<br />
And then he turned, and did not weep:<br />
too dark his heart, the wound too deep.<br />
Out into night, as cold as stone,<br />
loveless, friendless, he strode alone.<br />
Of hunter’s lore he had no need<br />
the trail to find. With little heed<br />
his ruthless foe, secure and proud,<br />
marched north away with blowing loud<br />
of brazen horns their lord to greet,<br />
trampling the earth with grinding feet.<br />
Behind them bold but wary went<br />
now Beren, swift as hound on scent,<br />
until beside a darkling well,<br />
where Rivil rises from the fell<br />
down into Serech’s reeds to flow,<br />
he found the slayers, found his foe.<br />
From hiding on the hillside near<br />
he marked them all: though less than fear<br />
too many for his sword and bow<br />
to slay alone. Then, crawling low<br />
as snake in heath, he nearer crept.<br />
There many weary with marching slept,<br />
but captains, sprawling on the grass,<br />
drank and from hand to hand let pass<br />
their booty, grudging each small thing<br />
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