Delphi Complete Works of H. P. Lovecraft(762)

I have stumbled by cave-ridden mountains

That rise barren and bleak from the 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,