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to Lúthien lying swooning faint.
To her drowning senses came the taint
of his foul breathing, and she stirred;
dizzily she spake a whispered word,
her mantle brushed across his face.
He stumbled staggering in his pace.
Out leaped Huan. Back he sprang.
Beneath the stars there shuddering rang
the cry of hunting wolves at bay,
the tongue of hounds that fearless slay.
Backward and forth they leaped and ran
feinting to flee, and round they span,
and bit and grappled, and fell and rose.
Then suddenly Huan holds and throws
his ghastly foe; his throat he rends,
choking his life. Not so it ends.
From shape to shape, from wolf to worm,
from monster to his own demon form,
Thû changes, but that desperate grip
he cannot shake, nor from it slip.
No wizardry, nor spell, nor dart,
no fang, nor venom, nor devil’s art
could harm that hound that hart and boar
had hunted once in Valinor.
Nigh the foul spirit Morgoth made
and bred of evil shuddering strayed
from its dark house, when Lúthien rose
and shivering looked upon his throes.
‘O demon dark, O phantom vile
of foulness wrought, of lies and guile,
here shalt thou die, thy spirit roam
quaking back to thy master’s home
his scorn and fury to endure;
thee he will in the bowels immure
of groaning earth, and in a hole
everlastingly thy naked soul
shall wail and gibber—this shall be
unless the keys thou render me
of thy black fortress, and the spell
that bindeth stone to stone thou tell,
and speak the words of opening.’
With gasping breath and shuddering
he spake, and yielded as he must,
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