CANTO V
Of the disquiet of the Green-elves and the passing of Men into Beleriand

The autumn deepend. Red turned trees.
Softly falling one by one
were beechen-leaf in northern breeze
from branches bare. The distant Sun
streaked thin and wan in frosty air,
and leaping into kindled lights
was starry host so silver-fair
when dark and cloudless were the nights
in winter come. Then softly fell
the early snow on shaggy boughs.
And Bëor’s folk still dwelt in dell
by shallow streams and woody howes.

Houses small they built of wood,
felled from living groves of trees
that since the days of Twilight stood,
and this the Green-elves did displease,
who hid themselves from Bëor’s men.
Naught else did they treasured more    
than things that grow in wood and glen,
the leafy whirl on forest floor,
the rustling song of windy skies.
So Felagund the Nandor sought
his counsel and his kingship wise.

“These Men, Lord Finrod, we love not,
these strangers out of mountains east.
Their axes fall on many trees,
their careless spears on bird and beast.
Their fires give us great unease.
The woods of Ossiriand to us
are dearer than the fallow gold
or opal pale, and dearer thus
than diamond or silver cold,
or weapon hoards in treasury    
or shining arms. Above all worth
we hold in love and memory
the things that grow upon the earth
and bend and dance in windy glens.
We love this many-rivered realm
where nightly roam the roes and wrens,
and windy sighs the branching elm,
beneath the Moon; and near and far,
as silver on the shivering leaf,
are shadows swimming under stars
while windy sings each stalk and sheaf.
To them we give our heart and more,
as loved is every bough and stem
that weave the woods of Hither-shore
as dolven halls or carven gem
to Noldor-folk. Our love as deep
as roots unnumbered, deeper still,
for ever since the Twilit sleep
we lingered here, our songs did fill
these forests fair with fain delight,
in music made beneath the oak
in the endless years of starlit night.
So pray, lord, bade these stranger folk
depart from us, for is there not
some wood in yonder westward field,    
in your own realms where can be sought
a land or fief, for them to shield?”

Finrod gave thought unto this plea
that the newly-come should go forth
from Ossiriand, and at last agreed
to find them succor in the North.
So went the men of Bëor bold
westward to Beleriand,
across the Gelion’s waters cold,
the border of the Elven-land.
They dwelt in Estolad for a time,
until they over nothern hills
and snowy Himlad-plains did climb
through Aglon’s gorge. And onward still
they climbed by rocky highland pass
and near the founts of Rivil’s well
they northward saw the rolling grass
of Ard-galen ere the fires fell.
And on they walked in heathers wild
by Aeluin deep that windy ran
silver neath the Moonlight mild
and took as fief then, Bëor's clan,
the hills of Ladros, no more to roam
in eastern woods or mountains cold.
In Dorthonion they built their home
in green and gentle ridges rolled
in days of peace, when vigils kept
the Elven-lords on the Dreaded Foe,
who in his hold had seeming slept,
and woke not yet his beasts of woe.