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| [[Image:Ted Nasmith - Lúthien.jpg|thumb|200px|''Lúthien'' by [[Ted Nasmith]]]]
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| {{lolcantos}} | | {{lolcantos}} |
| This [[Cantos of the Lay of Leithian|Canto]] starts out with the tale of [[Thingol]] and [[Melian]]. Then it gives a description of [[Lúthien]] their daughter, and tells how [[Beren Erchamion|Beren]] watched in amazement. [[Dairon]] warns Lúthien, and she hides, but Beren touches her arm by accident. Again Beren searches, and months later catches her again, naming her Tinúviel. Below is recounted the second meeting. | | [[File:Ted Nasmith - Lúthien.jpg|thumb|200px|''Lúthien'' by [[Ted Nasmith]]]] |
| | This [[Cantos of the Lay of Leithian|Canto]] starts out with the tale of [[Thingol]] and [[Melian]]. Then it gives a description of [[Lúthien]] their daughter, and tells how [[Beren]] watched in amazement. [[Dairon]] warns Lúthien, and she hides, but Beren touches her arm by accident. Again Beren searches, and months later catches her again, naming her Tinúviel. Below is recounted the second meeting. |
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| == The Canto == | | ==Concerning the Canto== |
| | This canto, in contrast to the previous one, shows peace and hope, and the beauty of Doriath. |
|
| |
|
| :There once, and long and long ago
| | {{blockquote|...the rocks were ringing<br /> |
| :before the [[sun]] and [[moon]] we know
| | the birds of Melian were singing|vv. 409-410}} |
| :were lit to sail above the world
| |
| :when first the shaggy woods unfurled
| |
| :and shadowy shapes did stare and roam
| |
| :beneath the dark and starry dome
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| :that hung above the dawn of [[Earth]]
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| :the silences with silver mirth
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| :were shaken; the rocks were ringing
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| :the birds of Melian were singing
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| :the first to sing in mortal lands
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| :the [[nightingales]] with her own hands
| |
| :she fed, that fay of garments gray;
| |
| :and dark and long her tresses lay
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| :beneath her silver girdle’s seat
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| :and down unto her silver feet.
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|
| |
|
| :She had wayward wandered on a time
| | It tells of the meeting and love of Thingol and Melian, mirroring in a way the future meeting and love of Beren and Lúthien; one elf to [[maia]], the other man to elf. |
| :from gardens of the [[Valar]], to climb
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| :the everlasting mountains free
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| :that look upon the [[Belegaer|outmost sea]]
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| :and never wandered back, but stayed
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| :and softly sang from glade to glade.
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| :Her voice it was that Thingol heard
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| :and sudden singing of a bird
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| :in that old time when new-come Elves
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| :had all the wide world to themselves.
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| :Yet all his kin now marched away
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| :as old tales tell, to seek the bay
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| :on the last shore of mortal lands
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| :where mighty ships with magic hands
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| :they made, and sailed beyond the sea.
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| :The Valar them bade to lands of ease
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| :and gardens fair, where earth and sky
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| :together flow, and none shall die.
| |
| :But Thingol stayed, enchanted, still
| |
| :one moment to hearken to the thrill
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| :of that sweet singing in the trees.
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| :enchanted moments such as these
| |
| :from gardens of the Lord of Sleep
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| :where fountains play and shadows creep
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| :do come, and count as many years
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| :in mortal lands. With many tears
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| :his people seek him ere they sail
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| :while Thingol listens in the dale.
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| :There after but an hour, him seems,
| |
| :he finds her where she lies and dreams
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| :pale Melian with her dark hair
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| :upon a bed of leaves. Beware!
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| :there slumber and a sleep is twined!
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| :he touched her tresses and his mind
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| :was drowned in the forgetful deep
| |
| :and dark the years rolled o’er his sleep.
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|
| |
|
| :Thus Thingol sailed not on the seas
| | {{blockquote|There after but an hour, him seems,<br /> |
| :but dwelt amid the land of trees
| | he finds her where she lies and dreams<br /> |
| :and Melian he loved, divine
| | pale Melian with her dark hair<br /> |
| :whose voice was potent as the wine
| | upon a bed of leaves. Beware!<br /> |
| :the Valar drink in golden halls
| | there slumber and a sleep is twined!<br /> |
| :where flower blooms and fountain falls;
| | He touched her tresses and his mind<br /> |
| :but when she sang it was a spell
| | was drowned in the forgetful deep<br /> |
| :and no flower stirred nor fountain fell.
| | and dark the years rolled o'er his sleep.|vv. 445-452}} |
| :A king and queen thus lived they long
| |
| :and [[Doriath]] was filed with song
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| :and all the [[Elves]] that missed their way
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| :and never found the western bay
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| :the gleaming walls of their long home
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| :by the gray seas and the white foam
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| :who never trod the [[Aman|golden land]]
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| :where the towers of the Valar stand
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| :all these were gathered in their realm
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| :beneath the beech and oak and elm.
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|
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|
| :In later days when [[Morgoth]] first | | This canto also includes the short paragraph about the minstrels: Tinfang Gelion, Maglor, and Dairon, the first of which has only this place laid aside for him in all the known writings of [[J.R.R. Tolkien|Tolkien]]. |
| :fleeing the Valar, their bondage bust
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| :and on the mortal lands set feet
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| :and in the North his [[Angband|mighty seat]]
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| :founded and fortified, and all
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| :the newborn race of Men were thrall
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| :unto his power, and Elf and Gnome
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| :his slaves, or wandered without home
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| :or scattered fastnesses walled with fear
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| :upraised upon his borders drear
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| :and each one fell, yet reigned there still
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| :in Doriath beyond his will
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| :Thingol and deathless Melian
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| :whose magic yet no evil can
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| :that cometh from without surpass.
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| :Here still was laughter and green grass
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| :and leaves were lit with the white sun
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| :and many marvels were begun.
| |
|
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|
| :In sunshine and in sheen of moon
| | {{blockquote|[[Tinfang|Tinfang Gelion]] who still the moon<br /> |
| :with silken robe and silver shoon
| | enchants on summer nights of June<br /> |
| :the daughter of the deathless queen
| | and kindles the pale firstling star;<br /> |
| :now danced on the undying green
| | and he who harps upon the far<br /> |
| :half elven-fair and half divine;
| | forgotten beaches and dark shores<br /> |
| :and when the [[stars]] began to shine
| | where western foam for ever roars<br /> |
| :unseen but near a piping woke
| | [[Maglor]] whose voice is like the sea;<br /> |
| :and in the branches of an [[oak]]
| | and Dairon, mightiest of the three.|vv. 503-510}} |
| :or seated on the beech-leaves brown
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| :[[Dairon]] the dark with ferny crown
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| :played with bewildering [[wizard]]’s art
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| :music for breaking of the heart.
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| :Such players have there only been
| |
| :thrice in all [[Doriath|Elfinesse]], I ween:
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| :[[Tinfang Gelion]] who still the moon
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| :enchants on summer nights of June
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| :and kindles the pale firstling star;
| |
| :and he who harps upon the far
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| :forgotten beaches and dark shores
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| :where western foam for ever roars
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| :[[Maglor]] whose voice is like the sea;
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| :and Dairon, mightiest of the three.
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|
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|
| :Now it befell on summer night
| | Beren's mixture of sorrow and bliss and the fleeing of Lúthien is shown, and at the last when he catches her in the vivid description of her dancing it culumnates. |
| :upon a lawn where lingering light
| |
| :yet lay and faded faint and gray
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| :that Lúthien danced while he did play.
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| :The chestnuts on the turf had shed
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| :their flowering candles, white and red;
| |
| :there darkling stood a silent elm
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| :and pale beneath its shadow-helm
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| :there glimmered faint the umbels thick
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| :of hemlocks like a mist, and quick
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| :the moths on pallid wings of white
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| :with tiny eyes of fiery light
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| :were fluttering softly, and the voles
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| :crept out to listen from their holes;
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| :the little owls were hushed and still;
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| :the moon was yet behind the hill.
| |
| :Her arms like ivory were gleaming
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| :her long hair like a cloud was streaming
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| :her feet atwinkle wandered roaming
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| :in misty mazes in the gloaming;
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| :and glowworms shimmered round her feet
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| :and moths in moving garland fleet
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| :above her head went wavering wan–
| |
| :and this the moon now looked upon
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| :uprisen slow, and round, and white
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| :above the branches of the night.
| |
| :Then clearly thrilled her voice and rang;
| |
| :with sudden ecstasy she sang
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| :a song of nightingales she learned
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| :and with her elvish magic turned
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| :to such bewildering delight
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| :the moon hung moveless in the night.
| |
| :And this it was that Beren heard
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| :and this he saw, without a word
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| :enchanted dumb, yet filled with fire
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| :of such a wonder and desire
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| :that all his mortal mind was dim;
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| :her magic bound and fettered him
| |
| :and faint he leaned against a tree.
| |
| :Forwandered, wayworn, gaunt was he
| |
| :his body sick and hear gone cold
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| :gray his hair, his youth turned old;
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| :for those that tread that lonely way
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| :a price of woe and anguish pay.
| |
| :And now his heart was healed and slain
| |
| :with a new life and with new pain.
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|
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|
| :He gazed, and as he gazed her hair
| | {{blockquote|'Tinúviel! Tinúviel!'<br /> |
| :within its cloudy web did snare
| | His voice such love and longing filled<br /> |
| :the silver moonbeams sifting white
| | one moment stood she, fear was stilled;<br /> |
| :between the leaves, and glinting bright
| | one moment only; like a flame<br /> |
| :the tremulous starlight of the skies
| | he leaped towards her as she stayed<br /> |
| :was caught and mirrored in her eyes.
| | and caught and kissed that elfin maid.|vv. 740-745}} |
| :Then all his journey’s lonely fare
| |
| :the hunger and the haggard care
| |
| :the [[Ered Gorgoroth|awful mountains]]’ stones he stained
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| :with blood of weary feet, and gained
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| :only a land of ghosts, and fear
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| :in dark ravines imprisoned sheer–
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| :there mighty spiders wove their webs
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| :old creatures foul with birdlike nebs
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| :that span their traps in dizzy air
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| :and filled it with clinging black despair
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| :and there they lived, and the sucked bones
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| :lay white beneath on the dank stones–
| |
| :now all these horrors like a cloud
| |
| :faded from mind. The waters loud
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| :falling from pineclad heights no more
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| :he heard, those waters gray and frore
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| :that bittersweet he drank and filled
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| :his mind with madness – all was stilled.
| |
| :He recked not now the burning road
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| :the paths demented where he strode
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| :endlessly … and ever new
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| :horizons stretched before his view
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| :as each blue ridge with bleeding feet
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| :was climbed, and down he went to meet
| |
| :battle with creatures old and strong
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| :and monsters in the dark, and long
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| :long watches in the haunted night
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| :while evil shapes with baleful light
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| :in clustered eyes did crawl and snuff
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| :beneath his tree – not half enough
| |
| :the price he deemed to come at last
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| :to that pale moon when day had passed
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| :to those clear stars of Elfinesse
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| :the hearts-ease and the loveliness.
| |
|
| |
|
| :Lo! all forgetting he was drawn
| | Then is a paragraph unlike the rest of the Lay, unless it were Thingol's thoughts of pity on Lúthien; a sort of cry from the poet to the one he writes about, asking her why she took her doom, and left elven immortality. |
| :unheeding toward the glimmering lawn
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| :by love and wonder that pompelled
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| :his feet from hiding; music welled
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| :within his heart, and songs unmade
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| :on themes unthought-of moved and swayed
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| :his soul with sweetness; out he came
| |
| :a shadow in moon’s pale flame–
| |
| :and Dairon’s flute as sudden stops
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| :as lark before it steeply drops
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| :as grasshopper within the grass
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| :listening for heavy feet to pass.
| |
| :‘Flee, Lúthien!’, and ‘Lúthien!’
| |
| :from hiding Dairon called again;
| |
| :‘A stranger walked the woods! Away!’
| |
| :But Lúthien would wondering stay;
| |
| :fear had she never felt or known
| |
| :till fear then seized her, all alone
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| :seeing that shape with shagged hair
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| :and shadow long that halted there.
| |
| :Then suddenly she vanished like a dream
| |
| :in dark oblivion, a gleam
| |
| :in hurrying clouds, for she had leapt
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| :among the hemlocks tall, and crept
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| :under a mighty plant with leaves
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| :all long and dark, whose stem in sheaves
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| :upheld an hundred umbels fair;
| |
| :and her white arms and shoulders bare
| |
| :her raiment pale, and in her hair
| |
| :the wild white roses glimmering there
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| :all lay like spattered moonlight hour
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| :in gleaming pools upon the floor.
| |
| :Then stared he wild in dumbness bound
| |
| :at silent trees, deserted ground;
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| :he blindly groped across the glade
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| :so the dark trees’ encircling shade
| |
| :and, while she watched with veiled eyes
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| :touched her soft arm in sweet surprise.
| |
| :Like startled moth from deathlike sleep
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| :in sunless nook or bushes deep
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| :she darted swift, and to and fro
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| :with cunning that elvish dancers know
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| :about the trunks of trees she twined
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| :a path fantastic. Far behind
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| :enchanted, wildered and forlorn
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| :Beren came blundering, bruised and torn;
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| :[[Esgalduin]] the elven-stream
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| :in which amid tree-shadows gleam
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| :the stars, flowed strong before his feet.
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| :Some secret way she found, and fleet
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| :passed over and was seen no more
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| :and left him forsaken on the shore.
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| :‘Darkly the sundering flood falls past!
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| :To this my long way comes at last–
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| :a hunger and a loneliness
| |
| :enchanted waters pitiless.’
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|
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|
| :A summer waned, and autumn glowed
| | {{blockquote|A! Lúthien! A! Lúthien!<br /> |
| :and Beren in the woods abode
| | more fair than any child of Men;<br /> |
| :as wild and wary as a faun
| | O! loveliest maid of Elfinesse<br /> |
| :that sudden wakes at rustling dawn
| | what madness does thee now possess!|vv. 748-751}} |
| :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
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| :the hum of many wings, the call
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| :of many a bird, the pattering fall
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| :of sudden rain upon the trees
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| :the windy tide in leafy seas
| |
| :the creaking of the boughs, he heard;
| |
| :but not the song of sweetest bird
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| :brought joy of comfort to his heart
| |
| :a wanderer dumb who dwelt apart;
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| :who sought unceasing and in vain
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| :to hear and see those things again:
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| :a song more fair than nightingale
| |
| :a wonder in the moonlight pale.
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|
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|
| :An autumn waned, a winter laid
| | On a final note, she slips away "just at the breaking of the day". |
| :the withered leaves in grove and glade;
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| :the beeches bare were gaunt and gray
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| :and red their leaves beneath them lay.
| |
| :From cavern pale the moist moon eyes
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| :the white mists that from earth arise
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| :to hide the morrow’s sun and drip
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| :all the gray day from each twig’s tip.
| |
| :By dawn and dusk he seeks her still;
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| :by noon and night in valleys chill
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| :nor hears a sound but the slow beat
| |
| :on sodden leaves of his own feet.
| |
| | |
| :The wind of winter winds his horn;
| |
| :the misty veil is rent and torn.
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| :The wind dies; the starry choirs
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| :leap in the silent sky to fires
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| :whose light comes bitter-cold and sheer
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| :through domes of frozen crystal clear.
| |
| | |
| :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
| |
| :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.
| |
| :And snowdrops sprang beneath her feet
| |
| :and one bird, sudden, late and sweet
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| :shrilled as she wayward passed along.
| |
| :A frozen brook to bubbling song
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| :awoke and laughed; but Beren stood
| |
| :still bound enchanted in the wood.
| |
| :Her starlight faded and the night
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| :closed o’er the snowdrops glimmering white.
| |
| | |
| :Thereafter on a hillock green
| |
| :he saw far off the elven-sheen
| |
| :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
| |
| :and heartache mingled with hearts-ease.
| |
| | |
| :A night there was when winter died;
| |
| :then all alone she sand and cried
| |
| :and danced until the dawn of spring
| |
| :and chanted some wild magic thing
| |
| :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
| |
| :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:
| |
| :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
| |
| :that all the woods now sudden rung:
| |
| :‘Tinúviel! Tinúviel!’
| |
| :And clear his voice was as a bell;
| |
| :its echoes wove a binding spell:
| |
| :‘Tinúviel! Tinúviel!’
| |
| :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.
| |
| | |
| :As love there woke in sweet surprise
| |
| :the starlight trembled in her eyes.
| |
| :A! Lúthien! A! Lúthien!
| |
| :more fair than any child of Men;
| |
| :O! loveliest maid of Elfinesse
| |
| :what madness does thee now possess!
| |
| :A! lissom limbs and shadowy hair
| |
| :and chaplet of white snowdrops there;
| |
| :O! starry diadem and white
| |
| :pale hands beneath the pale moonlight!
| |
| :She left his arms and slipped away
| |
| :just at the breaking of the day.
| |