The Lays of Beleriand (28 page)

In sunshine and in sheen of moon,

with silken robe and silver shoon, 490

the daughter of the deathless queen

now danced on the undying green,

half elven-fair and half divine;

and when the stars began to shine

unseen but near a piping woke, 495

and in the branches of an oak,

or seated on the beech-leaves brown,

Dairon the dark with ferny crown

played with bewildering wizard's art

music for breaking of the heart. 500

Such players have there only been

thrice in all Elfinesse, I ween:

Tinfang Gelion who still the moon

enchants on summer nights of June

and kindles the pale firstling star; 505

and he who harps upon the far

forgotten beaches and dark shores

where western foam for ever roars,

Maglor whose voice is like the sea;

and Dairon, mightiest of the three. 510

Now it befell on summer night,

upon a lawn where lingering light

yet lay and faded faint and grey,

that Luthien danced while he did play.

The chestnuts on the turf had shed 515

their flowering candles, white and red;

there darkling stood a silent elm

and pale beneath its shadow-helm

there glimmered faint the umbels thick

of hemlocks like a mist, and quick 520

the moths on pallid wings of white

with tiny eyes of fiery light

were fluttering softly, and the voles

crept out to listen from their holes;

the little owls were hushed and still; 525

the moon was yet behind the hill.

Her arms like ivory were gleaming,

her long hair like a cloud was streaming,

her feet atwinkle wandered roaming

in misty mazes in the gloaming; 530

and glowworms shimmered round her feet,

and moths in moving garland fleet

above her head went wavering wan -

and this the moon now looked upon,

uprisen slow, and round, and white, 535

above the branches of the night.

Then clearly thrilled her voice and rang;

with sudden ecstasy she sang

a song of nightingales she learned

and with her elvish magic turned 540

to such bewildering delight

the moon hung moveless in the night.

And this it was that Beren heard,

and this he saw, without a word,

enchanted dumb, yet filled with fire 545

of such a wonder and desire

that all his mortal mind was dim;

her magic bound and fettered him,

and faint he leaned against a tree.

Forwandered, wayworn, gaunt was he, 550

his body sick and heart gone cold,

grey in his hair, his youth turned old;

for those that tread that lonely way

a price of woe and anguish pay.

And now his heart was healed and slain 555

with a new life and with new pain.

He gazed, and as he gazed her hair

within its cloudy web did snare

the silver moonbeams sifting white

between the leaves, and glinting bright 560

the tremulous starlight of the skies

was caught and mirrored in her eyes.

Then all his journey's lonely fare,

the hunger and the haggard care,

the awful mountains' stones he stained 565

with blood of weary feet, and gained

only a land of ghosts, and fear

in dark ravines imprisoned sheer -

there mighty spiders wove their webs,

old creatures foul with birdlike nebs 570

that span their traps in dizzy air,

and filled it with clinging black despair,

and there they lived, and the sucked bones

lay white beneath on the dank stones -

now all these horrors like a cloud 575

faded from mind. The waters loud

falling from pineclad heights no more

he heard, those waters grey and frore

that bittersweet he drank and filled

his mind with madness - all was stilled. 580

He recked not now the burning road,

the paths demented where he strode

endlessly... and ever new

horizons stretched before his view,

as each blue ridge with bleeding feet 585

was climbed, and down he went to meet

battle with creatures old and strong

and monsters in the dark, and long,

long watches in the haunted night

while evil shapes with baleful light 590

in clustered eyes did crawl and snuff

beneath his tree - not half enough

the price he deemed to come at last

to that pale moon when day had passed,

to those clear stars of Elfinesse, 595

the hearts-ease and the loveliness.

Lo! all forgetting he was drawn

unheeding toward the glimmering lawn

by love and wonder that compelled

his feet from hiding; music welled 600

within his heart, and songs unmade

on themes unthought-of moved and swayed

his soul with sweetness; out he came,

a shadow in the moon's pale flame -

and Dairon's flute as sudden stops 605

as lark before it steeply drops,

as grasshopper within the grass

listening for heavy feet to pass.

'Flee, Luthien!', and'Luthien!'

from hiding Dairon called again; 610

'A stranger walks the woods! Away! '

But Luthien would wondering stay;

fear had she never felt or known,

till fear then seized her, all alone,

seeing that shape with shagged hair 615

and shadow long that halted there.

Then sudden she vanished like a dream

in dark oblivion, a gleam

in hurrying clouds, for she had leapt

among the hemlocks tall, and crept 620

under a mighty plant with leaves

all long and dark, whose stem in sheaves

upheld an hundred umbels fair;

and her white arms and shoulders bare

her raiment pale, and in her hair 625

the wild white roses glimmering there,

all lay like spattered moonlight hoar

in gleaming pools upon the floor.

Then stared he wild in dumbness bound

at silent trees, deserted ground; 630

he blindly groped across the glade

to the dark trees' encircling shade,

and, while she watched with veiled eyes,

touched her soft arm in sweet surprise.

Like startled moth from deathlike sleep 635

in sunless nook or bushes deep

she darted swift, and to and fro

with cunning that elvish dancers know

about the trunks of trees she twined

a path fantastic. Far behind 640

enchanted, wildered and forlorn

Beren came blundering, bruised and torn:

Esgalduin the elven-stream,

in which amid tree-shadows gleam

the stars, flowed strong before his feet. 645

Some secret way she found, and fleet

passed over and was seen no more,

and left him forsaken on the shore.

'Darkly the sundering flood rolls past!

To this my long way comes at last - 650

a hunger and a loneliness,

enchanted waters pitiless.'

A summer waned, an autumn glowed,

and Beren in the woods abode,

as wild and wary as a faun 655

that sudden wakes at rustling dawn,

and flits from shade to shade, and flees

the brightness of the sun, yet sees

all stealthy movements in the wood.

The murmurous warmth in weathers good, 660

the hum of many wings, the call

of many a bird, the pattering fall

of sudden rain upon the trees,

the windy tide in leafy seas,

the creaking of the boughs, he heard; 665

but not the song of sweetest bird

brought joy or comfort to his heart,

a wanderer dumb who dwelt apart;

who sought unceasing and in vain

to hear and see those things again: 670

a song more fair than nightingale,

a wonder in the moonlight pale.

An autumn waned, a winter laid

the withered leaves in grove and glade;

the beeches bare were gaunt and grey, 675

and red their leaves beneath them lay.

From cavern pale the moist moon eyes

the white mists that from earth arise

to hide the morrow's sun and drip

all the grey day from each twig's tip. 680

By dawn and dusk he seeks her still;

by noon and night in valleys chill,

nor hears a sound but the slow beat

on sodden leaves of his own feet.

The wind of winter winds his horn; 685

the misty veil is rent and torn.

The wind dies; the starry choirs

leap in the silent sky to fires,

whose light comes bitter-cold and sheer

through domes of frozen crystal clear. 690

A sparkle through the darkling trees,

a piercing glint of light he sees,

and there she dances all alone

upon a treeless knoll of stone!

Her mantle blue with jewels white 695

caught all the rays of frosted light.

She shone with cold and wintry flame,

as dancing down the hill she came,

and passed his watchful silent gaze,

a glimmer as of stars ablaze. 700

And snowdrops sprang beneath her feet,

and one bird, sudden, late and sweet,

shrilled as she wayward passed along.

A frozen brook to bubbling song

awoke and laughed; but Beren stood 705

still bound enchanted in the wood.

Her starlight faded and the night

closed o'er the snowdrops glimmering white.

Thereafter on a hillock green

he saw far off the elven-sheen 710

of shining limb and jewel bright

often and oft on moonlit night;

and Dairon's pipe awoke once more,

and soft she sang as once before.

Then nigh he stole beneath the trees, 715

and heartache mingled with hearts-ease.

A night there was when winter died;

then all alone she sang and cried

and danced until the dawn of spring,

and chanted some wild magic thing 720

that stirred him, till it sudden broke

the bonds that held him, and he woke

to madness sweet and brave despair.

He flung his arms to the night air,

and out he danced unheeding, fleet, 725

enchanted, with enchanted feet.

He sped towards the hillock green,

the lissom limbs, the dancing sheen;

he leapt upon the grassy hill

his arms with loveliness to fill: 730

his arms were empty, and she fled;

away, away her white feet sped.

But as she went he swiftly came

and called her with the tender name

of nightingales in elvish tongue, 735

that all the woods now sudden rung:

'Tinuviel! Tinuviel!'

And clear his voice was as a bell;

its echoes wove a binding spell:

'Tinuviel! Tinuviel! ' 740

His voice such love and longing filled

one moment stood she, fear was stilled;

one moment only; like a flame

he leaped towards her as she stayed

and caught and kissed that elfin maid. 745

As love there woke in sweet surprise

the starlight trembled in her eyes.

A! Luthien! A! Luthien!

more fair than any child of Men;

0! loveliest maid of Elfinesse, 750

what madness does thee now possess!

A! lissom limbs and shadowy hair

and chaplet of white snowdrops there;

0! starry diadem and white

pale hands beneath the pale moonlight! 755

She left his arms and slipped away

just at the breaking of the day.

NOTES.

439. Original reading of B:

from gardens of the God of Sleep,

457. Original reading of B:

the Gods drink in their golden halls

467-8. Original reading of B:

who never passed the golden gate

where doorwards of the Gods do wait,

These three changes are late, and their purpose is to remove the word Gods. The change in line 468 also gets rid of the purely metrical do in do wait; similarly did build and fortify

> founded and fortified 475 and did raise > upraised 480

look as if they belong to the same time. On the other hand did flutter > were fluttering 523 and did waver > ment wavering 533 seem to belong with the early emendations (see C. S. Lewis's commentary, pp. 320 - 1). I mention these changes here to illustrate my remarks on this subject, pp. 152-3.

493. elfin- B, emended to elven-. Here and subsequently this belongs with the early changes, as does elfin to elvish at 540, etc.

503. Tinfang Warble A, and B as typed; Gelion an early change in B.

508. After this line A has a couplet omitted in B: from England unto Eglamar

on rock and dune and sandy bar,

The first of these lines occurs also in an early draft for the opening of the poem, see p. 157, note to lines I - 30.

509. Maglor A, B; in the rough draft of this passage Ivare (with Maglor written beside it).

527-30. Marked in B with an X (i.e. in need of revision), but with no other verses substituted.

557. This line begins a new page in the A manuscript; at the top of the page is written the date 2318125'.