Astrophobos by HP Lovecraft

Astrophobos

 

 

          In the Midnight heaven's burning 
                  Through the ethereal deeps afar         
                  Once I watch'd with restless yearning   
                  An alluring aureate star;               
                  Ev'ry eve 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.               
                  In the lyre-born chords extended         
                  Harmonies of Lydian lays.               
                                                          
                  And (thought I) lies scenes of pleasure, 
                  Where the free and blessed dwell,       
                  And each moment bears a treasure,       
                  Freighted with the lotos-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 my 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 madness       
                  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,         
                  Through the fever'd flick'ring leer'd….
                  Now I know the fiendish fable           
                  The 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 forevermore!