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gathered the remnant of their men,
their maidens and their children fair;
forsaking war they made their lair
and cavernous hold far in the south.
On Narog’s towering bank its mouth
was opened; which they hid and veiled,
and mighty doors, that unassailed
till Túrin’s day stood vast and grim,
they built by trees o’ershadowed dim.
And with them dwelt a long time there
Curufin, and Celegorm the fair;
and a mighty folk grew neath their hands
in Narog’s secret halls and lands.
Thus Felagund in Nargothrond
still reigned, a hidden king whose bond
was sworn to Barahir the bold.
And now his son through forests cold
wandered alone as in a dream.
Esgalduin’s dark and shrouded stream
he followed, till its waters frore
were joined to Sirion, Sirion hoar,
pale silver water wide and free
rolling in splendour to the sea.
Now Beren came unto the pools,
wide shallow meres where Sirion cools
his gathered tide beneath the stars,
ere chafed and sundered by the bars
of reedy banks a mighty fen
he feeds and drenches, plunging then
into vast chasms underground,
where many miles his way is wound.
Umboth-Muilin, Twilight Meres,
those great wide waters grey as tears
the Elves then named. Through driving rain
from thence across the Guarded Plain
the Hills of the Hunters Beren saw
with bare tops bitten bleak and raw
by western winds, but in the mist
of streaming rains that flashed and hissed
into the meres he knew there lay
beneath those hills the cloven way
of Narog, and the watchful halls
of Felagund beside the falls
of Ingwil tumbling from the wold.
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