Delphi Complete Works of H. P. Lovecraft (Illustrated) (249 page)

The Conscri
pt

I am a peaceful working man —
     
I am not wise or strong —
But I can follow Nature’s plan
     
In labour, rest, and song.

One day the men that rule us all
     
Decided we must die,
Else pride and freedom surely fall
     
In the dim bye and bye.

They told me I must write my name
     
Upon a scroll of death;
That some day I should rise to fame
     
By giving up my breath.

I do not know what I have done
     
That I should thus be bound
To wait for tortures one by one,
     
And then an unmark’d mound.

I hate no man, and yet they say
     
That I must fight and kill;
That I must suffer day by day
     
To please a master’s will.

I used to have a conscience free,
     
But now they bid it rest;
They’ve made a number out of me,
     
And I must ne’er protest.

They tell of trenches, long and deep,
     
Fill’d with the mangled slain;
They talk till I can scarcely sleep,
     
So reeling is my brain.

They tell of filth, and blood, and woe;
     
Of things beyond belief;
Of things that make me tremble so
     
With mingled fright and grief.

I do not know what I shall do —
     
Is not the law unjust?
I can’t do what they want me to,
     
And yet they say I must!

Each day my doom doth nearer bring;
     
Each day the State prepares;
Sometimes I feel a watching thing
     
That stares, and stares, and stares.

I never seem to sleep — my head
     
Whirls in the queerest way.
Why am I chosen to be dead
     
Upon some fateful day?

Yet hark — some fibre is o’erwrought —
     
A giddying wine I quaff —
Things seem so odd, I can do naught
     
But laugh, and laugh, and laugh!

Despa
ir

O’er the midnight moorlands crying,
Thro’ the cypress forests sighing,
In the night-wind madly flying,
     
Hellish forms with streaming hair;
In the barren branches creaking,
By the stagnant swamp-pools speaking,
Past the shore-cliffs ever shrieking;
     
Damn’d daemons of despair.

Once, I think I half remember,
Ere the grey skies of November
Quench’d my youth’s aspiring ember,
     
Liv’d there such a thing as bliss;
Skies that now are dark were beaming,
Gold and azure, splendid seeming
Till I learn’d it all was dreaming —
     
Deadly drowsiness of Dis.

But the stream of Time, swift flowing,
Brings the torment of half-knowing —
Dimly rushing, blindly going
     
Past the never-trodden lea;
And the voyager, repining,
Sees the wicked death-fires shining,
Hears the wicked petrel’s whining
     
As he helpless drifts to sea.

Evil wings in ether beating;
Vultures at the spirit eating;
Things unseen forever fleeting
     
Black against the leering sky.
Ghastly shades of bygone gladness,
Clawing fiends of future sadness,
Mingle in a cloud of madness
     
Ever on the soul to lie.

Thus the living, lone and sobbing,
In the throes of anguish throbbing,
With the loathsome Furies robbing
     
Night and noon of peace and rest.
But beyond the groans and grating
Of abhorrent Life, is waiting
Sweet Oblivion, culminating
     
All the years of fruitless quest.

Revelati
on

In a vale of light and laughter,
     
Shining ‘neath the friendly sun,
Where fulfilment follow’d after
     
Ev’ry hope or dream begun;
Where an Aidenn gay and glorious,
     
Beckon’d down the winsome way;
There my soul, o’er pain victorious,
     
Laugh’d and lingered — yesterday.

Green and narrow was my valley,
     
Temper’d with a verdant shade;
Sun-deck’d brooklets musically
     
Sparkled thro’ each glorious glade;
And at night the stars serenely
     
Glow’d betwixt the boughs o’erhead,
While Astarte, calm and queenly,
     
Floods of fairy radiance shed.

There amid the tinted bowers,
     
Raptur’d with the opiate spell
Of the grasses, ferns, and flowers,
     
Poppy, phlox and pimpernel,
Long I lay, entranc’d and dreaming,
     
Pleas’d with Nature’s bounteous store,
Till I mark’d the shaded gleaming
     
Of the sky, and yearn’d for more.

Eagerly the branches tearing,
     
Clear’d I all the space above,
Till the bolder gaze, high faring,
     
Scann’d the naked skies of Jove;
Deeps unguess’d now shone before me,
     
Splendid beam’d the solar car;
Wings of fervid fancy bore me
     
Out beyond the farthest star.

Reaching, gasping, wishing, longing
     
For the pageant brought to sight,
Vain I watch’d the gold orbs thronging
     
Round celestial poles of light.
Madly on a moonbeam ladder
     
Heav’n’s abyss I sought to scale,
Ever wiser, ever sadder,
     
As the fruitless task would fail.

Then, with futile striving sated,
     
Veer’d my soul to earth again,
Well content that I was fated
     
For a fair, yet low domain;
Pleasing thoughts of glad tomorrows,
     
Like the blissful moments past,
Lull’d to rest my transient sorrows,
     
Still’d my godless greed at last.

But my downward glance, returning,
     
Shrank in fright from what it spy’d;
Slopes in hideous torment burning,
     
Terror in the brooklet’s tide:
For the dell, of shade denuded
     
By my desecrating hand,
‘Neath the bare sky blaz’d and brooded
     
As a lost, accursed land.

The Hou
se

    
’Tis a grove-circled dwelling
           
Set close to a hill,
     
Where the branches are telling
           
Strange legends of ill;
     
Over timbers so old
           
That they breathe of the dead,
     
Crawl the vines, green and cold,
           
By strange nourishment fed;
And no man knows the juices they suck from the depths of their dank slimy bed.

    
In the gardens are growing
           
Tall blossoms and fair,
     
Each pallid bloom throwing
           
Perfume on the air;
   
  
But the afternoon sun
           
With its shining red rays
     
Makes the picture loom dun
           
On the curious gaze,
And above the sween scent of the the blossoms rise odours of numberless days.

    
The rank grasses are waving
           
On terrace and lawn,
     
Dim memories sav’ring
           
Of things that have gone;
     
The stones of the walks
           
Are encrusted and wet,
     
And a strange spirit stalks
           
When the red sun has set,
And the soul of the watcher is fill’d with faint pictures he fain would forget.

    
It was in the hot Junetime
           
I stood by that scene,
     
When the gold rays of noontime
           
Beat bright on the green.
     
But I shiver’d with cold,
           
Groping feebly for light,
 
    
As a picture unroll’d —
           
And my age-spanning sight
Saw the time I had been there before flash like fulgury out of the night.

The Ci
ty

    
It was golden and splendid,
           
That City of light;
     
A vision suspended
           
In deeps of the night;
A region of wonder and glory, whose temples were marble and white.

    
I remember the season
           
It dawn’d on my gaze;
     
The mad time of unreason,
           
The brain-numbing days
When Winter, white-sheeted and ghastly, stalks onward to torture and craze.

    
More lovely than Zion
           
It shone in the sky,
     
When the beams of Orion
           
Beclouded my eye,
Bringing sleep that was fill’d with dim mem’ries of moments obscure and gone by.

    
Its mansions were stately
           
With carvings made fair,
     
Each rising sedately
           
On terraces rare,
And the gardens were fragrant and bright with strange miracles blossoming there.

    
The avenues lur’d me
           
With vistas sublime;
     
Tall arches assur’d me
           
That once on a time
I had wander’d in rapture beneath them, and bask’d in the Halcyon clime.

    
On the plazas were standing
           
A sculptur’d array;
     
Long-bearded, commanding,
           
Grave men in their day —
But one stood dismantled and broken, its bearded face batter’d away.

    
In that city effulgent
           
No mortal I saw;
     
But my fancy, indulgent
           
To memory’s law,
Linger’d long on the forms in the plazas, and eyed their stone features with awe.

    
I fann’d the faint ember
           
That glow’d in my mind,
     
And strove to remember
           
The aeons behind;
To rove thro’ infinity freely, and visit the past unconfin’d.

    
Then the horrible warning
           
Upon my soul sped
     
Like the ominous morning
           
That rises in red,
And in panic I flew from the knowledge of terrors forgotten and dead.

To Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Eighteenth Baron Dunsa
ny

As when the sun above a dusky wold
Springs into sight, and turns the gloom to gold,
Lights with his magic beams the dew-deck’d bow’rs,
And wakes to life the gay responsive flow’rs;
So now o’er realms where dark’ning dulness lies,
In solar state see shining
Plunkett
rise!
Monarch of Fancy! whose ethereal mind
Mounts fairy peaks, and leaves the throng behind;
Whose soul untainted bursts the bounds of space,
And leads to regions of supernal grace;
Can any praise thee with too strong a tone,
Who in this age of folly gleam’st alone?
Thy quill,
Dunsany
, with an art divine
Recalls the gods to each deserted shrine;
From mystic air a novel pantheon makes,
And with new spirits fills the meads and brakes;
With thee we wander thro’ primeval bow’rs,
For thou hast brought earth’s childhood back, and ours!
How leaps the soul, with sudden bliss increas’d,
When led by thee to lands beyond the East!
Sick of this sphere, in crime and conflict old,
We yearn for wonders distant and untold;
O’er Homer’s page a second time we pore,
And rack our brains for gleams of infant lore:
But all in vain — for valiant tho’ we strive
No common means these pictures can revive.
Then dawns
Dunsany
with celestial light,
And fulgent visions break upon our sight:
His barque enchanted each sad spirit bears
To shores of gold, beyond the reach of cares.
No earthly trammels now our thoughts may chain;
For childhood’s fancy hath come back again!
What glitt’ring worlds now wait our eager eyes!
What roads untrodden beckon thro’ the skies!
Wonders on wonders line the gorgeous ways,
And glorious vistas greet the ravish’d gaze;
Mountains of clouds, castles of crystal dreams,
Ethereal cities and Elysian streams;
Temples of blue, where myriad stars adore
Forgotten gods of aeons gone before!
Such are thine arts,
Dunsany
, such thy skill,
That scarce terrestrial seems thy moving quill;
Can man, and man alone, successful draw
Such scenes of wonder and domains of awe?
Our hearts, enraptur’d, fix thy mind’s abode
In high
Pegna
; hail thee as a god;
And sure, can aught more high or godlike be
Than such a fancy as resides in thee?
Delighted Pan a friend and peer perceives
As thy sweet music stirs the sylvan leaves;
The Nine, transported, bless thy golden lyre,
Approve thy fancy, and applaud thy fire;
Whilst Jove himself assumes a brother’s tone,
And vows the pantheon equal to his own.
Dunsany
, may thy days be glad and long;
Replete with visions, and atune with song;
May thy rare notes increasing millions cheer,
Thy name beloved, and thy mem’ry dear!
’Tis thou who hast in hours of dulness brought
New charms of language, and new gems of thought;
Hast with a poet’s grace enrich’d the earth
With aureate dreams as noble as thy birth.
Grateful we name thee, bright with fix’d renown,
The fairest jewel in
Hibernia’s
crown.