In the silent sunken pathways springs an herbage sparse and spare,
Where the musty scent of dead things dulls the fragrance of the air.
There is not a living creature in the lonely space around,
And the hedge-encompass’d quiet never echoes to a sound.
As I walk, and wait, and listen, I will often seek to find
When it was I knew that garden in an age long left behind;
I will oft conjure a vision of a day that is no more,
As I gaze upon the grey, grey scenes I feel I knew before.
Then a sadness settles o’er me, and a tremor seems to start:
For I know the flow’rs are shrivell’d hopes — the garden is my heart!
The Peace Advocate
(Supposed to be a “pome,” but cast strictly in modern metre.)
The vicar sat in the firelight’s glow,
A volume in his hand;
And a tear he shed for the widespread woe,
And the anguish brought by the vicious foe
That overran the land.
But ne’er a hand for his King rais’d he,
For he was a man of peace;
And he car’d not a whit for the victory
That must come to preserve his nation free,
And the world from fear release.
His son had buckled on his sword,
The first at the front was he;
But the vicar his valiant child ignor’d,
And his noble deeds in the field deplor’d,
For he knew not bravery.
On his flock he strove to fix his will,
And lead them to scorn the fray.
He told them that conquest brings but ill;
That meek submission would serve them still
To keep the foe away.
In vain did he hear the bugle’s sound
That strove to avert the fall.
The land, quoth he, is all men’s ground,
What matter if friend or foe be found
As master of us all?
One day from the village green hard by
The vicar heard a roar
Of cannon that rivall’d the anguish’d cry
Of the hundreds that liv’d, but wish’d to die
As the enemy rode them o’er.
Now he sees his own cathedral shake
At the foeman’s wanton aim.
The ancient tow’rs with the bullets quake;
The steeples fall, the foundations break,
And the whole is lost in flame.
Up the vicarage lane file the cavalcade,
And the vicar, and daughter, and wife
Scream out in vain for the needed aid
That only a regiment might have made
Ere they lose what is more than life.
Then quick to his brain came manhood’s thought,
As he saw his erring course;
And the vicar his dusty rifle brought
That the foe might at least by one be fought,
And force repaid with force.
One shot — the enemy’s blasting fire
A breach in the wall cuts thro’,
But the vicar replies with his waken’d ire;
Fells one arm’d brute for each fallen spire,
And in blood is born anew.
Two shots — the wife and daughter sink,
Each with a mortal wound;
And the vicar, too madden’d by far to think,
Rushes boldly on to death’s vague brink,
With the manhood he has found.
Three shots — but shots of another kind
The smoky regions rend;
And upon the foeman with rage gone blind,
Like a ceaseless, resistless, avenging wind,
The rescuing troops descend.
The smoke-pall clears, and the vicar’s son
His father’s life has sav’d;
And the vicar looks o’er the ruin done,
Ere the vict’ry by his child was won,
His face with care engrav’d.
The vicar sat in the firelight’s glow,
The volume in his hand,
That brought to his hearth the bitter woe
Which only a husband and father can know,
And truly understand.
With a chasten’d mien he flung the book
To the leaping flames before;
And a breath of sad relief he took
As the pages blacken’d beneath his look —
The fool of Peace no more!
Epilogue
The rev’rend parson, wak’d to man’s estate,
Laments his wife’s and daughter’s common fate.
His martial son in warm embrace enfolds,
And clings the tighter to the child he holds.
His peaceful notions, banish’d in an hour,
Will nevermore his wit or sense devour;
But steep’d in truth, ’tis now his nobler plan
To cure, yet recognise, the faults of man.
Ode for July Fourth, 1917
As Columbia’s brave scions, in anger array’d,
Once defy’d a proud monarch and built a new nation;
‘Gainst their brothers of Britain unsheath’d the sharp blade
That hath ne’er met defeat nor endur’d desecration;
So must we in this hour
Show our valour and pow’r,
And dispel the black perils that over us low’r:
Whilst the sons of Britannia, no longer our foes,
Will rejoice in our triumphs and strengthen our blows!
See the banners of Liberty float in the breeze
That plays light o’er the regions our fathers defended;
Hear the voice of the million resound o’er the leas,
As the deeds of the past are proclaim’d and commended;
And in splendour on high
Where our flags proudly fly,
See the folds we tore down flung again to the sky:
For the Emblem of England, in kinship unfurl’d,
Shall divide with Old Glory the praise of the world!
Bury’d now are the hatreds of subject and King,
And the strife that once sunder’d an Empire hath vanish’d.
With the fame of the Saxon the heavens shall ring
As the vultures of darkness are baffled and banish’d;
And the broad British sea,
Of her enemies free,
Shall in tribute bow gladly, Columbia to thee:
For the friends of the Right, in the field side by side,
Form a fabric of Freedom no hand can divide!
Nemesis
Thro’ the ghoul-guarded gateways of slumber,
Past the wan-moon’d abysses of night,
I have liv’d o’er my lives without number,
I have sounded all things with my sight;
And I struggle and shriek ere the daybreak, being driven to madness with fright.
I have whirl’d with the earth at the dawning,
When the sky was a vaporous flame;
I have seen the dark universe yawning,
Where the black planets roll without aim;
Where they roll in their horror unheeded, without knowledge or lustre or name.
I had drifted o’er seas without ending,
Under sinister grey-clouded skies
That the many-fork’d lightning is rending,
That resound with hysterical cries;
With the moans of invisible daemons that out of the green waters rise.
I have plung’d like a deer thro’ the arches
Of the hoary primoridal grove,
Where the oaks feel the presence that marches
And stalks on where no spirit dares rove;
And I flee from a thing that surrounds me, and leers thro’ dead branches above.
I have stumbled by cave-ridden mountains
That rise barren and bleak from t
he plain,
I have drunk of the fog-foetid fountains
That ooze down to the marsh and the main;
And in hot cursed tarns I have seen things I care not to gaze on again.
I have scann’d the vast ivy-clad palace,
I have trod its untenanted hall,
Where the moon writhing up from the valleys
Shews the tapestried things on the wall;
Strange figures discordantly woven, which I cannot endure to recall.
I have peer’d from the casement in wonder
At the mouldering meadows around,
At the many-roof’d village laid under
The curse of a grave-girdled ground;
And from rows of white urn-carven marble I listen intently for sound.
I have haunted the tombs of the ages,
I have flown on the pinions of fear
Where the smoke-belching Erebus rages,
Where the jokulls loom snow-clad and drear:
And in realms where the sun of the desert consumes what it never can cheer.
I was old when the Pharaohs first mounted
The jewel-deck’d throne by the Nile;
I was old in those epochs uncounted
When I, and I only, was vile;
And Man, yet untainted and happy, dwelt in bliss on the far Arctic isle.
Oh, great was the sin of my spirit,
And great is the reach of its doom;
Not the pity of Heaven can cheer it,
Nor can respite be found in the tomb:
Down the infinite aeons come beating the wings of unmerciful gloom.
Thro’ the ghoul-guarded gateways of slumber,
Past the wan-moon’d abysses of night,
I have liv’d o’er my lives without number,
I have sounded all things with my sight;
And I struggle and shriek ere the daybreak, being driven to madness with fright.
Astrophobos
In the midnight heavens burning
Thro’ ethereal deeps afar,
Once I watch’d with restless yearning
An alluring, aureate star;
Ev’ry eye aloft returning,
Gleaming nigh the Arctic car.
Mystic waves of beauty blended
With the gorgeous golden rays;
Phantasies of bliss descended
In a myrrh’d Elysian haze;
And in lyre-born chords extended
Harmonies of Lydian lays.
There (thought I) lies scenes of pleasure,
Where the free and blessed dwell,
And each moment bears a treasure
Freighted with a lotus-spell,
And there floats a liquid measure
From the lute of Israfel.
There (I told myself) were shining
Worlds of happiness unknown,
Peace and Innocence entwining
By the Crowned Virtue’s throne;
Men of light, their thoughts refining
Purer, fairer, than our own.
Thus I mus’d, when o’er the vision
Crept a red delirious change;
Hope dissolving to derision,
Beauty to distortion strange;
Hymnic chords in weird collision,
Spectral sights in endless range.
Crimson burn’d the star of sadness
As behind the beams I peer’d;
All was woe that seem’d but gladness
Ere my gaze with truth was sear’d;
Cacodaemons, mir’d with madness,
Thro’ the fever’d flick’ring leer’d.
Now I know the fiendish fable
That the golden glitter bore;
Now I shun the spangled sable
That I watch’d and lov’d before;
But the horror, set and stable,
Haunts my soul for evermore.
Sunset
The cloudless day is richer at its close;
A golden glory settles on the lea;
Soft, stealing shadows hint of cool repose
To mellowing landscape, and to calming sea.
And in that nobler, gentler, lovelier light,
The soul to sweeter, loftier bliss inclines;
Freed form the noonday glare, the favour’d sight
Increasing grace in earth and sky divines.
But ere the purest radiance crowns the green,
Or fairest lustre fills th’ expectant grove,
The twilight thickens, and the fleeting scene
Leaves but a hallow’d memory of love!
Laeta; a Lament
Respectfully Dedicated to Rheinhart Kleiner, Esq.
With Compliments of the Author
How sad droop the willows by Zulal’s fair side,
Where so lately I stray’d with my raven-hair’d bride:
Ev’ry light-floating lily, each flow’r on the shore,
Folds in sorrow since Laeta can see them no more!
Oh, blest were the days when in childhood and hope
With my Laeta I rov’d o’er the blossom-clad slope,
Plucking white meadow-daisies and ferns by the stream,
As we laugh’d at the ripples that twinkle and gleam.
Not a bloom deck’d the mead that could rival in grace
The dear innocent charms of my Laeta’s fair face;
Not a thrush thrill’d the grove with a carol so choice
As the silvery strains of my Laeta’s sweet voice.
The shy Nymphs of the woodland, the fount and the plain,
Strove to equal her beauty, but strove all in vain;
Yet no envy they bore her, while fruitless they strove,
For so pure was my Laeta, they could only love!
When the warm breath of Auster play’d soft o’er the flow’rs,
And young Zephyrus rustled the gay scented bow’rs,
Ev’ry breeze seem’d to pause as it drew near the fair,
Too much aw’d at her sweetness to tumble her hair.
How fond were our dreams on the day when we stood
In the ivy-grown temple beside the dark wood;
When our pledges we seal’d at the sanctify’d shrine,
And I knew that my Laeta forever was mine!
How blissful our thoughts when the wild autumn came,
And the forests with scarlet and gold were aflame;
Yet how heavy my heart when I first felt the fear
That my starry-eyed Laeta would fade with the year!
The pastures were sere and the heavens were grey
When I laid my lov’d Laeta forever away,
And the river god pity’d, as weeping I pac’d
Mingling hot bitter tears with his cold frozen waste.
Now the flow’rs have return’d, but they bloom not so sweet
As in days when they blossom’d round Laeta’s dear feet;
And the willows complain to the answering hill,
And the thrushes that once were so happy are still.
The green meadows and groves in their loneliness pine,
Whilst the Dryads no more in their madrigals join,
The breeze once so joyous now murmurs and sighs,
And blows soft o’er the spot where my lov’d Laeta lies.
So pensive I roam o’er the desolate lawn
Where we wander’d and lov’d in the days that are gone,
And I yearn for the autumn, when Zulal’s blue tide
Shall sing low by my grave at the lov’d Laeta’s 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 we
re 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 facts.
’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.
Delphi Complete Works of H. P. Lovecraft (Illustrated) Page 212