#endore

Then his flaming eyes he on them bent, / and darkness black fell round them all. / Only they saw as through a pall / of eddying smoke those eyes profound / in which their senses choked and drowned. / He chanted a song of wizardry, / of piercing, opening, of treachery, / revealing, uncovering, betraying. / Then sudden Felagund there swaying / sang in answer a song of staying, / resisting, battling against power, / of secrets kept, strength like a tower, / and trust unbroken, freedom, escape; / of changing and of shifting shape, / of snares eluded, broken traps, / the prison opening, the chain that snaps. / Backwards and forwards swayed their song. / Reeling and foundering, as ever more strong / Thû's chanting swelled, Felagund fought, / and all the magic and might he brought / of Elfinesse into his words.

[Thû:] Whom do ye serve, Light or Mirk? / Who is the maker of mightiest work? / Who is the king of earthly kings, / the greatest giver of gold and rings? / Who is the master of the wide earth? / Who despoiled them of their mirth, / the greedy Gods? Repeat your vows, / Orcs of Bauglir! Do not bend your brows! / Death to light, to law, to love! / Cursed be moon and stars above! / May darkness everlasting old / that waits outside in surges cold / drown Manwe, Varda, and the sun! / May all in hatred be begun, / and all in evil ended be, / in the moaning of the endless Sea!'

An isléd hill there stood alone / amid the valley, like a stone / rolled from the distant mountains vast / when giants in tumult hurtled past. / Around its feet the river looped / a stream divided, that had scooped / the hanging edges into caves. / There briefly shuddered Sirion's waves / and ran to other shores more clean. / An elven watchtower had it been, / and strong it was, and still was fair; / but now did grim with menace stare / one way to pale Beleriand, / the other to that mournful land / beyond the valley's northern mouth. / Thence could be glimpsed the fields of drouth, / the dusty dunes, the desert wide; / and further far could be descried / the brooding cloud that hangs and lowers / on Thangorodrim's thunderous towers. / Now in that hill was the abode / of one most evil; and the road / that from Beleriand thither came / he watched with sleepless eyes of flame.

[Melian:] 'Nay, Lúthien my child, I fear / he lives indeed in bondage drear. / The Lord of Wolves hath prisons dark, / chains and enchantments cruel and stark, / there trapped and bound and languishing / now Beren dreams that thou dost sing.'