The Complete H.P. Lovecraft Collection (Xist Classics)

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The Complete H.P. Lovecraft Collection (Xist Classics) Page 214

by H. P. Lovecraft


  To weak terrestrial eyes, each orb a sun;

  So beam’d the prospect on my wond’ring soul:

  A spangled curtain, rich with twinkling gems,

  Yet each a mighty universe of suns.

  But as I gaz’d, I sens’d a spirit voice

  In speech didactic, tho’ no voice it was,

  Save as it carried thought. It bade me mark

  That all the universes in my view

  Form’d but an atom in infinity;

  Whose reaches pass the ether-laden realms

  Of heat and light, extending to far fields

  Where flourish worlds invisible and vague,

  Fill’d with strange wisdom and uncanny life,

  And yet beyond; to myriad spheres of light,

  To spheres of darkness, to abysmal voids

  That know the pulses of disorder’d force.

  Big with these musings, I survey’d the surge

  Of boundless being, yet I us’d not eyes,

  For spirit leans not on the props of sense.

  The docent presence swell’d my strength of soul;

  All things I knew, but knew with mind alone.

  Time’s endless vista spread before my thought

  With its vast pageant of unceasing change

  And sempiternal strife of force and will;

  I saw the ages flow in stately stream

  Past rise and fall of universe and life;

  I saw the birth of suns and worlds, their death,

  Their transmutation into limpid flame,

  Their second birth and second death, their course

  Perpetual thro’ the aeons’ termless flight,

  Never the same, yet born again to serve

  The varying purpose of omnipotence.

  And whilst I watch’d, I knew each second’s space

  Was greater than the lifetime of our world.

  Then turn’d my musings to that speck of dust

  Whereon my form corporeal took its rise;

  That speck, born but a second, which must die

  In one brief second more; that fragile earth;

  That crude experiment; that cosmic sport

  Which holds our proud, aspiring race of mites

  And moral vermin; those presuming mites

  Whom ignorance with empty pomp adorns,

  And misinstructs in specious dignity;

  Those mites who, reas’ning outward, vaunt themselves

  As the chief work of Nature, and enjoy

  In fatuous fancy the particular care

  Of all her mystic, super-regnant pow’r.

  And as I strove to vision the sad sphere

  Which lurk’d, lost in ethereal vortices,

  Methough my soul, tun’d to the infinite,

  Refus’d to glimpse that poor atomic blight;

  That misbegotten accident of space;

  That globe of insignificance, whereon

  (My guide celestial told me) dwells no part

  Of empyrean virtue, but where breed

  The coarse corruptions of divine disease;

  The fest’ring ailments of infinity;

  The morbid matter by itself call’d man:

  Such matter (said my guide) as oft breaks forth

  On broad Creation’s fabric, to annoy

  For a brief instant, ere assuaging death

  Heal up the malady its birth provok’d.

  Sicken’d, I turn’d my heavy thoughts away.

  Then spake th’ ethereal guide with mocking mien,

  Upbraiding me for searching after Truth;

  Visiting on my mind the searing scorn

  Of mind superior; laughing at the woe

  Which rent the vital essence of my soul.

  Methought he brought remembrance of the time

  When from my fellows to the grove I stray’d,

  In solitude and dusk to meditate

  On things forbidden, and to pierce the veil

  Of seeming good and seeming beauteousness

  That covers o’er the tragedy of Truth,

  Helping mankind forget his sorry lot,

  And raising Hope where Truth would crush it down.

  He spake, and as he ceas’d, methought the flames

  Of fuming Heav’n resolv’d in torments dire;

  Whirling in maelstroms of rebellious might,

  Yet ever bound by laws I fathom’d not.

  Cycles and epicycles, of such girth

  That each a cosmos seem’d, dazzled my gaze

  Till all a wild phantasmal glow became.

  Now burst athwart the fulgent formlessness

  A rift of purer sheen, a sight supernal,

  Broader that all the void conceiv’d by man,

  Yet narrow here. A glimpse of heav’ns beyond;

  Of weird creations so remote and great

  That ev’n my guide assum’d a tone of awe.

  Borne on the wings of stark immensity,

  A touch of rhythm celestial reach’d my soul;

  Thrilling me more with horror than with joy.

  Again the spirit mock’d my human pangs,

  And deep revil’d me for presumptuous thoughts:

  Yet changing now his mien, he bade me scan

  The wid’ning rift that clave the walls of space;

  He bade me search it for the ultimate;

  He bade me find the Truth I sought so long;

  He bade me brave th’ unutterable Thing,

  The final Truth of moving entity.

  All this he bade and offer’d—but my soul,

  Clinging to life, fled without aim or knowledge,

  Shrieking in silence thro’ the gibbering deeps.

  Thus shriek’d the young Lucullus, as he fled

  Thro’ gibbering deeps—and tumbled out of bed;

  Within the room the morning sunshine gleams,

  Whilst the poor youth recalls his troubled dreams.

  He feels his aching limbs, whose woeful pain

  Informs his soul his body lives again,

  And thanks his stars—or cosmoses—or such

  That he survives the noxious nightmare’s clutch.

  Thrill’d with the music of th’ eternal spheres

  (Or is it the alarm-clock that he hears?),

  He vows to all the Pantheon, high and low,

  No more to feed on cake, or pie, or Poe.

  And now his gloomy spirits seem to rise,

  As he the world beholds with clearer eyes;

  The cup he thought too full of dregs to quaff

  Affords him wine enough to raise a laugh.

  (All this is metaphor—you must not think

  Our late Endymion prone to stronger drink!)

  With brighter visage and with lighter heart,

  He turns his fancies to the grocer’s mart;

  And strange to say, at last he seems to find

  His daily duties worthy of his mind.

  Since Truth prov’d such a high and dang’rous goal,

  Our bard seeks one less trying to his soul;

  With deep-drawn breath he flouts his dreary woes,

  And a good clerk from a bad poet grows!

  Now close attend my lay, ye scribbling crew

  That bay the moon in numbers strange and new;

  That madly for the spark celestial bawl

  In metres short or long, or none at all:

  Curb your rash force, in numbers or at tea,

  Nor overzealous for high fancies be;

  Reflect, ere ye the draught Pierian take,

  What worthy clerks or plumbers ye might make;

  Wax not too frenzied in the leaping line

  That neither sense nor measure can confine,

  Lest ye, like young Lucullus Launguish, groan

  Beneath Poe-etic nightmares of your own!

  Poemata Minora, Volume II

  Ode to Selene or Diana

  Immortal Moon, in maiden splendour shine.

  Dispense thy beams, divine Latona�
��s child.

  Thy silver rays all grosser things define,

  And hide harsh truth in sweet illusion mild.

  In thy soft light, the city of unrest

  That stands so squalid in thy brother’s glare

  Throws off its habit, and in silence blest

  Becomes a vision, sparkling bright and fair.

  The modern world, with all it’s care & pain,

  The smoky streets, the hideous clanging mills,

  Face ’neath thy beams, Selene, and again

  We dream like shepherds on Chaldæa’s hills.

  Take heed, Diana, of my humble plea.

  Convey me where my happiness may last.

  Draw me against the tide of time’s rough sea

  And let my sprirt rest amid the past.

  To the Old Pagan Religion

  Olympian gods! How can I let ye go

  And pin my faith to this new Christian creed?

  Can I resign the deities I know

  For him who on a cross for man did bleed?

  How in my weakness can my hopes depend

  On one lone God, though mighty be his pow’r?

  Why can Jove’s host no more assistance lend,

  To soothe my pain, and cheer my troubled hour?

  Are there no Dryads on these wooded mounts

  O’er which I oft in desolation roam?

  Are there no Naiads in these crystal founts?

  Nor Nereids upon the Ocean foam?

  Fast spreads the new; the older faith declines.

  The name of Christ resounds upon the air.

  But my wrack’d soul in solitude repines

  And gives the Gods their last-receivèd pray’r.

  On the Ruin of Rome

  Low dost thou lie, O Rome, neath the foot of the Teuton

  Slaves are thy men, and bent to the will of thy conqueror:

  Wither hath gone, great city, the race that gave law to all nations,

  Subdu’d the east and the west, and made them bow down to thy consuls.

  Knew not defeat, but gave it to all who attack’d thee?

  Dead! and replac’d by these wretches who cower in confusion

  Dead! They who gave us this empire to guard and to live in

  Rome, thou didst fall from thy pow’r with the proud race that made thee,

  And we, base Italians, enjoy’d what we could not have builded.

  To Pan

  Seated in a woodland glen

  By a shallow reedy stream

  Once I fell a-musing, when

  I was lull’d into a dream.

  From the brook a shape arose

  Half a man and half a goat.

  Hoofs it had instead of toes

  And a beard adorn’d its throat

  On a set of rustic reeds

  Sweetly play’d this hybrid man

  Naught car’d I for earthly needs,

  For I knew that this was Pan

  Nymphs & Satyrs gather’d ’round

  To enjoy the lively sound.

  All to soon I woke in pain

  And return’d to haunts of men.

  But in rural vales I’d fain

  Live and hear Pan’s pipes again.

  On the Vanity of Human Ambition

  Apollo, chasing Daphne, gain’d his prize

  But lo! she turn’d to wood before his eyes.

  More modern swains at golden prizes aim,

  And ever strive some worldly thing to claim.

  Yet ’tis the same as in Apollo’s case,

  For, once attain’d, the purest gold seems base.

  All that men seek ’s unworthy of the quest,

  Yet seek they will, and never pause for rest.

  True bliss, methinks, a man can only find

  In virtuous life, & cultivated mind.

  Providence

  Where bay and river tranquil blend,

  And leafy hillsides rise,

  The spires of Providence ascend

  Against the ancient skies.

  Here centuried domes of shining gold

  Salute the morning’s glare,

  While slanting gables, odd and old,

  Are scatter’d here and there.

  And in the narrow winding ways

  That climb o’er slope and crest,

  The magic of forgotten days

  May still be found to rest.

  A fanlight’s gleam, a knocker’s blow,

  A glimpse of Georgian brick—

  The sights and sounds of long ago

  Where fancies cluster thick.

  A flight of steps with iron rail,

  A belfry looming tall,

  A slender steeple, carv’d and pale,

  A moss-grown garden wall.

  A hidden churchyard’s crumbling proofs

  Of man’s mortality,

  A rotting wharf where gambrel roofs

  Keep watch above the sea.

  Square and parade, whose walls have tower’d

  Full fifteen decades long

  By cobbled ways ’mid trees embower’d,

  And slighted by the throng.

  Stone bridges spanning languid streams,

  Houses perch’d on the hill,

  And courts where mysteries and dreams

  The brooding spirit fill.

  Steep alley steps by vines conceal’d,

  Where small-pan’d windows glow

  At twilight on a bit of field

  That chance has left below.

  My Providence! What airy hosts

  Turn still thy gilded vanes;

  What winds of elf that with grey ghosts

  People thine ancient lanes!

  The chimes of evening as of old

  Above thy valleys sound,

  While thy stern fathers ’neath the mould

  Make blest thy sacred ground.

  Thou dream’st beside the waters there,

  Unchang’d by cruel years;

  A spirit from an age more fair

  That shines behind our tears.

  Thy twinkling lights each night I see,

  Tho’ time and space divide;

  For thou art of the soul of me,

  And always at my side!

  Psychopompos:

  A Tale in Rhyme

  I am He who howls in the night;

  I am He who moans in the snow;

  I am He who hath never seen light;

  I am He who mounts from below.

  My car is the car of Death;

  My wings are the wings of dread;

  My breath is the north wind’s breath;

  My prey are the cold and the dead.

  In old Auvergne, when schools were poor and few,

  And peasants fancy’d what they scarcely knew,

  When lords and gentry shunn’d their Monarch’s throne

  For solitary castles of their own,

  There dwelt a man of rank, whose fortress stood

  In the hush’d twilight of a hoary wood.

  De Blois his name; his lineage high and vast,

  A proud memorial of an honour’d past;

  But curious swains would whisper now and then

  That Sieur De Blois was not as other men.

  In person dark and lean, with glossy hair,

  And gleaming teeth that he would often bare,

  With piercing eye, and stealthy roving glance,

  And tongue that clipt the soft, sweet speech of France;

  The Sieur was little lov’d and seldom seen,

  So close he kept within his own demesne.

  The castle servants, few, discreet, and old,

  Full many a tale of strangeness might have told;

  But bow’d with years, they rarely left the door

  Wherein their sires and grandsires serv’d before.

  Thus gossip rose, as gossip rises best,

  When mystery imparts a keener zest;

  Seclusion oft the poison tongue attracts,

  And scandal prospers on a dearth of f
acts.

  ’Twas said, the Sieur had more than once been spy’d

  Alone at midnight by the river’s side,

  With aspect so uncouth, and gaze so strange,

  That rustics cross’d themselves to see the change;

  Yet none, when press’d, could clearly say or know

  Just what it was, or why they trembled so.

  De Blois, as rumour whisper’d, fear’d to pray,

  Nor us’d his chapel on the Sabbath day;

  Howe’er this may have been, ’twas known at least

  His household had no chaplain, monk, or priest.

  But if the Master liv’d in dubious fame,

  Twice fear’d and hated was his noble Dame;

  As dark as he, in features wild and proud,

  And with a weird supernal grace endow’d,

  The haughty mistress scorn’d the rural train

  Who sought to learn her source, but sought in vain.

  Old women call’d her eyes too bright by half,

  And nervous children shiver’d at her laugh;

  Richard, the dwarf (whose word had little weight),

  Vow’d she was like a serpent in her gait,

  Whilst ancient Pierre (the aged often err)

  Laid all her husband’s mystery to her.

  Still more absurd were those odd mutter’d things

  That calumny to curious list’ners brings;

  Those subtle slanders, told with downcast face,

  And muffled voice—those tales no man may trace;

  Tales that the faith of old wives can command,

  Tho’ always heard at sixth or seventh hand.

  Thus village legend darkly would imply

  That Dame De Blois possess’d an evil eye;

  Or going further, furtively suggest

  A lurking spark of sorcery in her breast;

  Old Mère Allard (herself half witch) once said

  The lady’s glance work’d strangely on the dead.

  So liv’d the pair, like many another two

  That shun the crowd, and shrink from public view.

  They scorn’d the doubts by ev’ry peasant shewn,

  And ask’d but one thing—to be let alone!

  ’Twas Candlemas, the dreariest time of year,

  With fall long gone, and spring too far to cheer,

 

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