Dark of the Moon
Poems of Fantasy and the Macabre
-Edited by August Derleth
(all of the works of this volume are not contained herin,,
merely some of my favorites)
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-Phantom
-The Sorceress of the
Moon
-The Erl King
-The Ancient Track
-La Belle Dame Sans Merci
-The Warning
-The Phantom-Wooer
-The Eldritch Dark
-The Ghost's Moonshine
-Fantaise D'Antan
-The Witch Bride
-In Thessaly
-The Faeries
-Resurrection
-An April Ghost
-Nostalgia
-Bitters
-Changeling
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.
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Phantom
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge
.
All look and likeness caught from earth,
All accident of kin and birth,
Has pass'd away. There was no trace
Of aught on that illumined face,
Uprais'd beneath the rifted stone
But of one spirit all her own;-
She, she herself, and only she,
Shone thro' her body visibly.
.
.
The
Erl King
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
.
Who rideth so late through the night wind-wild?
It is the father with his child;
He has the little one well in his arm;
He holds him safe, and he folds him warm.
.
My son, why hidest thy face so shy?
Seest thou not, father, the Erl-king nigh?
The Erl-king, with train and crown?
It is a wreath of mist, my son.
"Come, lovely boy, come, go with me;
Such merry plays I'll play with thee;
Many a bright flower grows on the strand,
And my mother has many a gay garment at hand."
.
My father, my father, and dost thou not hear
What the Erl-King whispers in my ear?-
Be quiet, my darling, be quiet, my child;
Through withered leaves the wind howls wild.
.
"Come, lovely boy, wilt thou go with me?
My daughters fair shall wait on thee;
My daughters their nightly revels keep;
They'll sing, and they'll dance, and they'll rock thee to sleep."
.
My father, my father, and seest thou not
The Erl-king's daughter's in yon dim spot?-
My son, my son I see and I know
'Tis the old gray willow that shimmers so.
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"I love thee; thy beauty has ravished my sense;
And, willing or not, I will carry the hence."
O Father, the Erl-king now puts forth his arm!
O Father, the Erl-king has done me harm!
.
The father shudders; he hurries on;
And faster he holds his moaning son;
He reaches home with fear and dread,
And lo! in his arms the child is dead.
.
.
La
Belle Dame Sans Merci
-John Keats
.
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing
O what can ail thee, knight-at arms,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full,
And the harvest's done.
I see a lily on thy brow
With anguish moist and fever dew;
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful - a faery's child'
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She look'd at me as she did love,
And made a sweet moan.
I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery's song.
She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna dew,
And sure in language strange she said,
I love thee true!
She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept and sigh'd full sore,
And there I shut her wild, wild eyes
With kisses four.
And there she lull'd me asleep,
And there I dream'd, ah! woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dream'd
On the cold Hill's side.
I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried - La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!
I saw their staved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill's side.
And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.
.
.
The
Phantom-Wooer
-Thomas Lovell Beddoes
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A ghost, that loved a lady fair,
Ever in the starry air
Of midnight at her pillow stood;
And, with a sweetness skies above
The luring words of human love,
Her soul the phantom wooed.
Sweet and sweet is their poisoned note,
The little snakes of silver throat,
In mossy skulls that nest and lie,
Ever singing "die, oh! die."
.
Young soul put off your flesh, and come
With me into the quiet tomb,
Our bed is lovely, dark and sweet;
The earth will swing us, as she goes,
Beneath our coverlid of snows,
And the warm leaden sheet.
Dear and dear is their poisoned note,
The little snakes of silver throat,
In mossy skulls that nest and lie,
Ever singing "die, oh! die."
.
.
.
The
Ghost's Moonshine
-Thomas Lovell Beddoes
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It is midnight, my wedded;
Let us lie under
The tempest bright, my dreaded,
In the warm thunder:
.
Tremble and weep not! What can you fear?
My heart's best wish is thine,-
That thou wert white, and bedded
On the softest bier,
In the ghost's moonshine.
Is that the wind? No, no;
Only two devils, that blow
Through the murderer's ribs to and fro,
In the ghost's moonshine.
.
Who is there, she said afraid, yet
Stirring and awaking
The poor old dead? His spade it
Is only making-
(Tremble and weep not! What do you crave?)
Where yonder grasses twine,
A pleasant bed, my maid, that
Children call a grave
In the cold moonshine.
Is that the wind? No, no;
Only two devils, that blow
Through the murderer's ribs to and fro,
In the ghost's moonshine.
.
What dost thou strain above her
Lovely throat's whiteness?
A silken chain, to cover
Her bosom's brightness?
Tremble and weep not: what dost thou fear?
-My blood is spilt like wine,
Thou hast strangled and slain me, lover,
Thou hast stabbed me, dear,
.
In the ghost's moonshine.
Is that the wind? No, no;
Only her goblin doth blow
Through the murderer's ribs to and fro,
In it's own moonshine.
.
.
The
Witch Bride
-William Allingham
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A fair witch crept to a young man's side,
And he kiss'd her and took her for his bride.
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But a shape came in at the dead of night,
And fill'd the room with snowy light.
.
And he saw how in his arms there lay
A thing more frightful than mouth may say.
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And he rose in haste, and follow'd the Shape
Till morning crown'd an eastern cape.
.
And he girded himself and follow'd still,
When sunset sainted the western hill.
.
But, mocking and thwarting, clung to his side,
Weary day! - the foul Witch-Bride.
.
.
The
Faeries
-William Allingham
.
Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren't go a-hunting
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl's feather!
.
Down along the rocky shore
Some make their home,
They live on crispy pancakes
Of yellow tide-foam;
Some in the reeds
Of the black mountain lake,
With frogs for their watch-dogs,
All night awake.
.
High on the hill-top
The old King sits;
He is now so old and gray
He's nigh lost his wits.
With a bridge of white mist
Columbkill he crosses,
On his stately journeys
From Slieveleague to Rosses;
Or going up with music
On cold starry nights
To sup with the Queen
Of the gay Northern Lights.
.
They stole little Bridget
For seven years long;
When she came down again
Her friends were all gone.
They took her lightly back,
Between the night and morrow,
They thought that she was fast asleep
But she was dead with sorrow.
They have kept her ever since
Deep within the lake,
On a bed of flag-leaves,
Watching till she wake.
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By the craggy hill-side,
Through the mosses here,
They have placed thorn-trees
For pleasure here and there.
If any man so daring
As dig them up in spite,
He shall find their sharpest thorns
In his bed at night.
.
Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren't go a-hunting
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl's feather!
.
.
An
April Ghost
-Lizette Woodworth Reese
.
All the ghosts I ever knew,
White, and thinly calling,
Come into the house with you
When the dew is falling.
.
All of youth that ever died,
In the Springtime weather,
In the windy April tide,
Climd the dusk together.
.
For a moment, lad and maid
Stand up there all lonely;
In a moment fade and fade-
You are left, you only.
.
.
Bitters
-Lizette Woodworth Reese
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Hyssop from a grave's edge,
Yarrow from a spent lane,
Everlasting from a wood
Wrecked in a dark rain.
.
Light the seven fagots now,
Make them seven times hot;
Brew the sad herbs leaf and stalk
For the scarlet pot.
.
Peering griefs, spites, dust of dreams
Cast in one by one;
Drag the wild moon down, to watch
Till the stuff is done!
.
They that drink of this will know
Sharp and choking breath;
Every day of every year
Smell the mold of Death.
.
.
The
Sorceress of the Moon
-William Rose Benet
.
Its gates are griffin-guarded gates,
Its towers of yellow ivory hewn.
Resplendent glints each sparkling stud
Of rubies red as pigeon's blood,
Of pearls as white as the swan's neck,
Of diamonds without flaw or fleck
That crust its towers, and glitter thence
Along its cloudy battlements.
And far within its portal waits
The sorceress of the moon.
.
This palace I have seen afar
When crimson, gold, and purple cloud
Made all the west a blaze of flame,
Ere twilight from her cloisters came
To walk the heavens with nunlike pace
And downcast eyes and wistful face.
Then all its wonder crumbling lies
In splendid wreckage on the skies.
But now - ah, see! Its raptures rise
Impossible and proud.
.
So fling up a bridle of delight
Upon the wildest dream of all,
And, as Mahomet 'strode the back
Of the white beast called Alborac,
We too shall thunder up the west
With rich caparison and crest,
Wind horn before those marvelous gates,
Daring their guard, and find who waits
Withdrawn in splendor infinite
In that vast presence-hall.
.
Her brows would make the calla gray.
Her hair is soft and dark as night.
Her purple dais canopy
Bears stars in golden broidery.
She wields a slight and silvern wand
To summon spirits from beyond.
And all the wandering winds in tune
Sing to the sorceress of the moon
With airest music, and always
Swoon in her haze of light.
.
Yet hers are griffin-guarded gates.
Minds in her presence madden soon.
Her gaze is strange; and to sustain
Her glamorous eyes means joy and pain
Mixed in such wise, the soul is caught
Spellbound, bewildered passing thought.
O glance not long, but shun her sight
While still the heart desires delight,
Where deep within the sunset waits
The sorceress of the moon!
.
.
The
Ancient Track
-Howard Phillips Lovecraft
.
There was no hand to hold me back
That night I found the ancient track
Over the hill, and strained to see
The fields that teased my memory.
This tree, that wall - I knew them well,
And all the roofs and orchards fell
Familiarly upon my mind
As from a past not far behind.
I knew what shadows would be cast
When the late moon came up at last
From back of Zaman's Hill, and how
The vale would shine three hours from now.
And when the path grew steep and high,
And seemed to end against the sky,
I had no fear of what might rest
Beyond that silhouetted crest.
Straight on I walked, while all the night
Grew pale with phosphorescent light,
And wall and farmhouse gable glowed
Unearthly by the climbing road.
There was the milestone that I knew-
"Two miles to Dunwich" - now the view
Of distant spire and roofs would dawn
With ten more upward paces gone. . . .
.
There was no hand to hold me back
That night I found the ancient track,
And reached the crest to see outspread
A valley of the lost and dead:
And over Zaman's Hill the horn
Of a malignant moon was born,
To light the weeds and vines that grew
On ruined walls I never knew.
The fox-fire glowed in field and bog,
And unknown waters spewed a fog
Whose curling talons mocked the thought
That I had ever known this spot.
Too well I saw from the mad scene
That my loved past had never been-
Nor was I now upon the trail
Descending to that long dead vale.
Around was fog - ahead, the spray
Of star-streams in the Milky Way. . . .
There was no hand to hold me back
That night I found the ancient track.
.
.
The
Warning
-Robert P. Tristram Coffin
.
The little screech owl sits polite
In the middle of the night
And tells you gently, over, over,
You are wisest under cover
Of your roof. Things rooted drink
More than walking things can think
From the cup of night and take
More pleasure than the sun can make.
.
You had best not be abroad
When a tree might seem a god
Naked in vast company.
There are things you best not see.
Better keep your eyes within
The little day a light can spin.
Better in, the owl politely
Warns and warns you, lightly, lightly
.
.
The
Eldritch Dark
-Clark Ashton Smith
.
Now as the twilight's doubtful interval
Closes with night's accomplished certainty
A wizard wind goes crying eerily;
And in the glade unsteady shadows crawl,
Timed to the trees, whose voices rear and fall
As with some dreadful witches' ecstasy,
Flung upward to the dark, whence glitters free
The crooked moon, impendent over all.
.
Twin veils of covering cloud and silence thrown
Across the movement and the sound of things,
Make blank the night, till in the broken west
The moon's ensanguined blade awhile is shown. . . .
The night grows whole again . . . The shadows rest,
Gathered beneath a greater shadow's wings.
.
.
Fantaisie
D'Antan
-Clark Ashton Smith
.
Lost and alien lie the leas,
Purpled all with euphrasies,
Where the lunar unicorn
Breasts an amber-pouring morn
Risen from Hesperian seas
Of a main that has no bourn.
Only things impossible
There in deathless glamour dwell:
Pegasus and sagittary,
Trotting, part the ferns of faery,
Succubi and seraphim
Tryst among the cedars dim;
Where the beaded waters brim,
White limoniads arise,
Interlacing arms and tresses
With the sun-dark satyresses;
There, on Aquilonian skies,
Gryphons, questing to and fro
For the gold of long ago,
Find at eve an aureate star
In the gulf crespuscular;
There the Hyperboreans,
Pale with wisdom more than man's,
Tell the wileful centauresses
Half their holocryptic lore;
There, at noon, the tritonesses,
All bemused with mandragore,
Mate with satyrs of the shore.
.
Love, could we have only found
The forgotten road that runs
Under all the sunken suns
To that time-estranged ground,
Surely, love were proven there
More than long and lone despair;
Holden and felicitous,
Love were fortunate to us;
And we too might ever dwell,
Deathless and impossible,
In those amber-litten leas,
Circled all with euphrasies.
.
.
In
Thessaly
-Clark Ashton Smith
.
When I lay dead in Thessaly,
The land was rife with sorcery:
Fair witches howled to Hecate,
Pouring the blood of rams by night
With many a necromantic rite
To draw me back for their delight. . . .
.
But I lay dead in Thessaly
With all my lust and wizardry:
Somewhere the Golden Ass went by
To munch the rose, and find again
The shape and manlihead of men:
But in my grave I stirred not then,
.
And the black lote in Thessaly
Its juices dripped unceasingly
Above the rotting mouth of me;
And worm and mould and graveyard must,
And roots of cypress, darkly thrust,
Transformed the dead to utter dust.
.
.
Resurrection
-Clark Ashton Smith
.
Sorceress and Sorcerer,
Risen from the sepulchre,
From the deep, unhallowed ground,
We have found and we have bound
Each the other, as before,
With the fatal spells of yore,
With Sabbatic sign, and word
That Thessalian moons have heard.
.
Sorcerer and Sorceress,
Hold we still our heathenness-
Loving without sin or shame-
As in years of stake and flame.
Share we now the witches' madness,
Wake the Hecatean gladness,
Call the demon named Delight
From his lair of burning night.
.
Love that was, and love to be,
Dwell within this wizardry:
Lay your arm my head beneath
As upon some nighted heath
Where we slumbered all alone
When the sabbat's rout was flown;
Let me drink your dulcet breath
As in evenings after death.
.
Witch beloved from old,
When upon Atlantis rolled
All the dire and wrathful deep,
You had kissed mine eyes asleep;
On my lids shall fall your lips
In the final sun's eclipse;
And your hand shall take my hand
In the last and utmost land.
.
.
Nostalgia
-Mary Elizabeth Counselman
.
There is a clang of gongs within my ears,
A touch of lotus on my fingertips.
Dark slant-eyes stare behind my candid blue,
And unknown accents tremble on my lips.
.
My heart-beats strangely quicken to the sound
Of weird and whining music without tune.
I sometimes long for watered fields of rice,
To see familiar corn beneath the moon.
.
What pagan taint of blood is in our line?
What long-forgotten sire bequeathed to me
The memory of arched bridges o'er a stream
Half choked with blossoms from a cherry-tree?
.
The white man's blood flows ruddy in my veins;
My Saxon fathers knew this Saxon place . . .
Yet . . . what is this calm squatting form I see?
A wisp of pungent smoke obscures the face . . .
.
.
Changeling
-Leah Bodine Drake
.
I am out on the wind
In the wild, black night;
On the wings of the owl
I take my flight,
On the ghostly wings of the great white owl;
And whether the night be fair or foul,
Or the moon be up or the thunder growl,
Happy I be,
Happy I be
When the changeling blood runs green in me!
.
When meek folk sleep
In their dull, soft beds,
I creep over roots
That the weasel treads,
Where the squat green lamps of the toadstools glow-
And only the fox knows the way I go,
And nobody knows the things I know. . . .
Wise I be,
Wise I be
When the changeling blood runs green in me!
.
O Mother, slumber
And do not wake! . . .
Thin voices called
From the rain-wet brake,
And the child you cradled against your breasts
Is out in the night on the black wind's crest,
For only the wild can give me rest. . . .
Sad I be,
Sad I be
When the changeling blood runs green in me.
.