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Of Finrod and Bëor  by losselen

CANTO I

Of Finrod tarrying in Ossiriand


In Ossiriand, in Elder Days,
beneath the peaks afar and blue
of Ered Luin, beside the ways
of Dwarven-folk a wood there grew.
By talking brook, on loamy earth                          5
the elm and beech and ashes grey
stood they ancient in that firth,
and in its eaves did Finrod stray.
From guard and friend he turned aside
wearying of the hunt, he rode                              10
across the Gelion's waters wide
and took upon the Dwarven-road.
His quarry gone, his arrows spent,
softly warbled the summer stream
his feet along its waters went,                              15
and walked as if a waking dream;
unhorsed he wandered neath the trees
in valleys and in caves of stone,
while blossoms nodded in the breeze:
in Ossiriand, he went alone.                                 20

A thread of jewels like dews upon
his mantle dark wore Finrod king,
his girdle sewn with silver wan
and emeralds were in his ring
as serpents twain in Aman wrought                      25
by Elven-wrights, before the Dawn,
when crystal lamps lit forges hot
in the shinning halls of Tirion.
For Finrod was an Elven lord,
a king of old in days gone by,                               30
his mail was bright and sharp his sword,
in Nargothrond neath northern sky.
He reared his power in secret ways,
in caverns and in halls of stone,
be-veiled away from searching gaze,                    35
to allies hid, to foes unknown.
But free and wild was land that he
unbound by time did set upon
like a dreamer deep in reverie
amazed and lost, until the dawn                           40
and night alike had passed him by
and through the flower-meads he led
and still the dark and starry sky
wheeled above his golden head.
For long he walked in grasses strewn                   45
with summer blooms and flowers filled
and silent beneath the sickle Moon
Finrod by a clearing stilled.
Unsounding soft did Finrod tread
in thistles and in shifting grass,                            50
his singing voice had windless sped
headlong, as clear as chiming glass.
And so he sang in starry dell
adrift in forest shimmering;
his music like a water fell                                     55
as silver dewdrops glimmering.
His power in his song revealed,
for time itself did move to still
while birds listened, while stars wheeled
and Finrod sang atop the hill.                              60

And birds and beasts were not all
who wandered in that lovely wood,
where ashes dark and birches tall
beside the silent mountains stood.
Ossiriand, Ossiriand,                                            65
for ever wild were strath and glen,
across those rivers, seven-lands,
into the forests wandered Men
found they out of mountains cold
and camped and reveled in its wood,                   70
its thistles young, its rowans old,
while Felagund beside the mountains stood.

 





        

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