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Yet seldom well an outlaw ends,
and Morgoth was a king more strong
than all the world has since in song
recorded, and his wisdom wide
slow and surely who him defied
did hem and hedge. Thus at the last
must Beren flee the forest fast
and lands he loved where lay his sire
by reeds bewailed beneath the mire.
Beneath a heap of mossy stones
now crumble those once most mighty bones.
but Beren flees the friendless North
one autumn night, and creeps him forth;
the leaguer of his watchful foes
he passes—silently he goes.
No more his hidden bowstring sings,
no more his shaven arrow wings,
no more his hunted head doth lie
upon the heath beneath the sky.
The moon that looked amid the mist
upon the pines, the wind that hissed
among the heather and the fern
found him no more. The stars that burn
about the North with silver fire
in frosty airs, the Burning Briar
that men did name in days long gone,
were set behind his back, and shone
o’er land and lake and darkened hill,
forsaken fen and mountain rill.
His face was South from the Land of Dread
whence only evil pathways led,
and only the feet of men most bold
might cross the Shadowy Mountains cold.
Their northern slopes were filled with woe,
with evil and with mortal foe;
their southern faces mounted sheer
in rocky pinnacle and pier,
whose roots were woven with deceit
and washed with waters bitter-sweet.
There magic lurked in gulf and glen,
for far away beyond the ken
of searching eyes, unless it were
from dizzy tower that pricked the air
where only eagles lived and cried,
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