Delphi Complete Works of H. P. Lovecraft (Illustrated) (253 page)

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Authors: H. P. Lovecraft

A Poem by Blank Frailty

Ah, Passion, like a voice — that buds!
With many thorns . . . that sharply stick:
Recalls to me the longing of our bloods . . .
And — makes my wearied heart requick! . . . . . . .

Arcad
ia

By Head Balledup

O give me the life of the village,

Uninhibited, free, and sweet;
The place where the arts all flourish,

Grove Court and Christopher Street.

I am sick of the old conventions,

And critics who will not praise,
So sing ho for the open spaces,

And aesthetes with kindly ways.

Here every bard is a genius,

And artists are Raphaels,
And above the roofs of Patchin Place

The Muse of Talent dwells.

In a Sequester’d Providence Churchyard Where Once Poe Walk
’d

Eternal brood the shadows on this ground,
Dreaming of centuries that have gone before;
Great elms rise solemnly by slab and mound,
Arch’d high above a hidden world of yore.
Round all the scene a light of memory plays,
And dead leaves whisper of departed days,
Longing for sights and sounds that are no more.

Lonely and sad, a spectre glides along
Aisles where of old his living footsteps fell;
No common glance discerns him, tho’ his song
Peals down thro’ time with a mysterious spell:
Only the few who sorcery’s secret know
Espy amidst these tombs the shade of Poe.

To Clark Ashton Smith, Esq., upon His Phantastick Tales, Verses, Pictures, and Sculpture
s

A time-black tower against dim banks of cloud;

Around its base the pathless, pressing wood.
Shadow and silence, moss and mould, enshroud

Grey, age-fell’d slabs that once as cromlechs stood.
No fall of foot, no song of bird awakes

The lethal aisles of sempiternal night,
Tho’ oft with stir of wings the dense air shakes,

As in the tower there glows a pallid light.

For here, apart, dwells one whose hands have wrought

Strange eidola that chill the world with fear;
Whose graven runes in tones of dread have taught

What things beyond the star-gulfs lurk and leer.
Dark Lord of Averoigne — whose windows stare
On pits of dream no other gaze could bear!

Life’s Myste
ry

Life! Ah, Life!
What may this fluorescent pageant mean?
Who can the evanescent object glean?
He that is dead is the key of Life —
Gone is the symbol, deep is the grave!

Man is a breath, and Life is the fire;
Birth is death, and silence the choir.
Wrest from the aeons the heart of gold!
Tear from the fabric the threads that are old!
Life! Ah, Life!

— L. Phillips Howard

Nathica
na

It was in the pale garden of Zaïs;
The mist-shrouded gardens of Zaïs,
Where blossoms the white nephalotë,
The redolent herald of midnight.
There slumber the still lakes of crystal,
And streamlets that flow without murm’ring;
Smooth streamlets from caverns of Kathos
Where brood the calm spirits of twilight.
And over the lakes and the streamlets
Are bridges of pure alabaster,
White bridges all cunningly carven
With figures of fairies and daemons.
Here glimmer strange suns and strange planets,
And strange is the crescent Banapis
That sets ‘yond the ivy-grown ramparts
Where thickens the dust of the evening.
Here fall the white vapours of Yabon;
And here in the swirl of vapours
I saw the divine Nathicana;
The garlanded, white Nathicana;
The slender, black-hair’d Nathicana;
The sloe-ey’d, red-lipp’d Nathicana;
The silver-voic’d, sweet Nathicana;
The pale-rob’d, belov’d Nathicana.
And ever was she my belovèd,
From ages when Time was unfashion’d;
From days when the stars were not fashion’d
Nor any thing fashion’d but Yabon.
And here dwelt we ever and ever,
The innocent children of Zaïs,
At peace in the paths and the arbours,
White-crown’d with the blest nephalotë.
How oft would we float in the twilight
O’er flow’r-cover’d pastures and hillsides
All white with the lowly astalthon;
The lowly yet lovely astalthon,
And dream in a world made of dreaming
The dreams that are fairer than Aidenn;
Bright dreams that are truer than reason!
So dream’d and so lov’d we thro’ ages,
Till came the curs’d season of Dzannin;
The daemon-damn’d season of Dzannin;
When red shone the suns and the planets,
And red gleamed the crescent Banapis,
And red fell the vapours of Yabon.
Then redden’d the blossoms and streamlets
And lakes that lay under the bridges,
And even the calm alabaster
Glow’d pink with uncanny reflections
Till all the carv’d fairies and daemons
Leer’d redly from the backgrounds of shadow.
Now redden’d my vision, and madly
I strove to peer thro’ the dense curtain
And glimpse the divine Nathicana;
The pure, ever-pale Nathicana;
The lov’d, the unchang’d Nathicana.
But vortex on vortex of madness
Beclouded my labouring vision;
My damnable, reddening vision
That built a new world for my seeing;
A new world of redness and darkness,
A horrible coma call’d living.
So now in this coma call’d living
I view the bright phantons of beauty;
The false, hollow phantoms of beauty
That cloak all the evils of Dzannin.
I view them with infinite longing,
So like do they seem to my lov’d one;
So shapely and fair like my lov’d one;
Yet foul from their eyes shines their evil;
Their cruel and pitiless evil,
More evil than Thaphron and Latgoz,
Twice ill for its gorgeous concealment.
And only in slumbers of midnight
Appears the lost maid Nathicana,
The pallid, the pure Nathicana,
Who fades at the glance of the dreamer.
Again and again do I seek her;
I woo with deep draughts of Plathotis,
Deep draughts brew’d in wine of Astarte
And strengthen’d with tears of long weeping.
I yearn for the gardens of Zaïs;
The lovely lost garden of Zaïs
Where blossoms the white nephalotë,
The redolent herald of midnight.
The last potent draught I am brewing;
A draught that the daemons delight in;
A draught that will banish the redness;
The horrible coma call’d living.
Soon, soon, if I fail not in brewing,
The redness and madness will vanish,
And deep in the worm-peopled darkness
Will rot the base chains that hav bound me.
Once more shall the gardens of Zaïs
Dawn white on my long-tortur’d vision,
And there midst the vapours of Yabon
Will stand the divine Nathicana;
The deathless, restor’d Nathicana
Whose like is not met with in living.

Christmas Greetings to Eugene B. Kuntz et
al

May good St. Nick, like as a bird of night,
Bring thee rich blessings in his annual flight;
Long by thy chimney rest his pond’rous pack,
And leave with lessen’d weight upon his back!

Christmas Greetings to Laurie A. Sawy
er

As Christmas snows (as yet a poet’s trope)
Call back one’s bygone days of youth and hope,
Four metrick lines I send — they’re quite enough —
Tho’ once I fancy’d I could write the stuff!

Christmas Greetings to Sonia H. Gree
ne

Once more the ancient feast returns,
And the bright hearth domestic burns

With Yuletide’s added blaze;
So, too, may all your joys increase
Midst floods of mem’ry, love, and peace,

And dreams of Halcyon days.

Christmas Greetings to Rheinhart Klein
er

St. John, whose art sublimely shines
In liquid odes and melting lines,
Let Theobald his regard express
In verse of lesser loveliness.
As now in regal state appear
The festive hours of Yuletide cheer,
My strongest wish is that you may
Feel ev’ry blessing of the day!

Christmas Greetings to Felis (Frank Belknap Long’s cat
)

Little Tiger, burning bright
With a subtle Blakeish light,
Tell what visions have their home
In those eyes of flame and chrome!
Children vex thee — thoughtless, gay —
Holding when thou wouldst away:
What dark lore is that which thou,
Spitting, mixest with thy meow?

Christmas Greetings to Annie E. P. Gamwe
ll

As when a pigeon, loos’d in realms remote,
Takes instant wing, and seeks his native cote,
So speed my blessings from a barb’rous clime
To thee and Providence at Christmas time!

Christmas Greetings to Felis (Frank Belknap Long’s cat
)

Haughty Sphinx, whose amber eyes
Hold the secrets of the skies,
As thou ripplest in thy grace,
Round the chairs and chimney-place,
Scorn on thy patrician face:
Hiss not harsh, nor use thy claws
On the hand that gives applause —
Good-will only doth abide
In these lines at Christmastide!

LIST OF POEMS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER