H.P. Lovecraft's
FUNGI FROM YUGGOTH
FUNGI FROM YUGGOTH
I. The Book
The place was dark and dusty and half-lost In tangles
of old alleys near the quays, Reeking of strange things brought in from the seas,
And with queer curls of fog that west winds tossed. Small lozenge panes, obscured
by smoke and frost, Just shewed the books, in piles like twisted trees, Rotting
from floor to roof - congeries Of crumbling elder lore at little cost. I entered,
charmed, and from a cobwebbed heap Took up the nearest tome and thumbed it through,
Trembling at curious words that seemed to keep Some secret, monstrous if one only
knew. Then, looking for some seller old in craft, I could find nothing but a voice
that laughed.
II. Pursuit
I held the book beneath my coat, at pains To hide
the thing from sight in such a place; Hurrying through the ancient harbour lanes
With often-turning head and nervous pace. Dull, furtive windows in old tottering
brick Peered at me oddly as I hastened by, And thinking what they sheltered, I
grew sick For a redeeming glimpse of clean blue sky. No one had seen me take the
thing - but still A blank laugh echoed in my whirling head, And I could guess
what nighted worlds of ill Lurked in that volume I had coveted. The way grew strange
- the walls alike and madding - And far behind me, unseen feet were padding.
III. The Key
I do not know what windings in the waste Of those
strange sea-lanes brought me home once more, But on my porch I trembled, white
with haste To get inside and bolt the heavy door. I had the book that told the
hidden way Across the void and through the space-hung screens That hold the undimensioned
worlds at bay, And keep lost aeons to their own demesnes. At last the key was
mine to those vague visions Of sunset spires and twilight woods that brood Dim
in the gulfs beyond this earth's precisions, Lurking as memories of infinitude.
The key was mine, but as I sat there mumbling, The attic window shook with a faint
fumbling.
IV. Recognition
The day had come again, when as a child I saw - just
once - that hollow of old oaks, Grey with a ground-mist that enfolds and chokes
The slinking shapes which madness has defiled. It was the same - an herbage rank
and wild Clings round an altar whose carved sign invokes That Nameless One to
whom a thousand smokes Rose, aeons gone, from unclean towers up-piled. I saw the
body spread on that dank stone, And knew those things which feasted were not men;
I knew this strange, grey world was not my own, But Yuggoth, past the starryvoids
- and then The body shrieked at me with a dead cry, And all too late I knew that
it was I!
V. Homecoming
The daemon said that he would take me home To the
pale, shadowy land I half recalled As a high place of stair and terrace, walled
With marble balustrades that sky-winds comb, While miles below a maze of dome
on dome And tower on tower beside a sea lies sprawled. Once more, he told me,
I would stand enthralled On those old heights, and hear the far-off foam. All
this he promised, and through sunset's gate He swept me, past the lapping lakes
of flame, And red-gold thrones of gods without a name Who shriek in fear at some
impending fate. Then a black gulf with sea-sounds in the night: "Here was your
home," he mocked, "when you had sight!"
VI. The Lamp
We found the lamp inside those hollow cliffs Whose
chiselled sign no priest in Thebes could read, And from whose caverns frightened
hieroglyphs Warned everyliving creature of earth's breed. No more was there -
just that one brazen bowl With traces of a curious oil within; Fretted with some
obscurely patterned scroll, And symbols hinting vaguely of strange sin. Little
the fears of forty centuries meant To us as we bore off our slender spoil, And
when we scanned it in our darkened tent We struck a match to test the ancient
oil. It blazed - great God!... But the vast shapes we saw In that mad flash have
seared our lives with awe.
VII. Zaman's Hill
The great hill hung close over the old town, A precipice
against the main street's end; Green, tall, and wooded, looking darkly down Upon
the steeple at the highway bend. Two hundred years the whispers had been heard
About what happened on the man-shunned slope - Tales of an oddly mangled deer
or bird, Or of lost boys whose kin had ceased to hope. One day the mail-man found
no village there, Nor were its folk or houses seen again; People came out from
Aylesbury to stare - Yet they all told the mail-man it was plain That he was mad
for saying he had spied The great hill's gluttonous eyes, and jaws stretched wide.
VIII. The Port
Ten miles from Arkham I had struck the trail That
rides the cliff-edge over Boynton Beach, And hoped that just at sunset I could
reach The crest that looks on Innsmouth in the vale. Far out at sea was a retreating
sail, White as hard years of ancient winds could bleach, But evil with some portent
beyond speech, So that I did not wave my hand or hail. Sails out of lnnsmouth!
echoing old renown Of long-dead times. But now a too-swift night Is closing in,
and I have reached the height Whence I so often scan the distant town. The spires
and roofs are there - but look! The gloom Sinks on dark lanes, as lightless as
the tomb!
IX. The Courtyard
It was the city I had known before; The ancient, leprous
town where mongrel throngs Chant to strange gods, and beat unhallowed gongs In
crypts beneath foul alleys near the shore. The rotting, fish-eyed houses leered
at me From where they leaned, drunk and half-animate, As edging through the filth
I passed the gate To the black courtyard where the man would be. The dark walls
closed me in, and loud I cursed That ever I had come to such a den, When suddenly
a score of windows burst Into wild light, and swarmed with dancing men: Mad, soundless
revels of the dragging dead - And not a corpse had either hands or head!
X. The Pigeon-Flyers
They took me slumming, where gaunt walls of brick
Bulge outward with a viscous stored-up evil, And twisted faces, thronging foul
and thick, Wink messages to alien god and devil. A million fires were blazing
in the streets, And from flat roofs a furtive few would fly Bedraggled birds into
the yawning sky While hidden drums droned on with measured beats. I knew those
fires were brewing monstrous things, And that those birds of space had been Outside
- I guessed to what dark planet's crypts they plied, And what they brought from
Thog beneath their wings. The others laughed - till struck too mute to speak By
what they glimpsed in one bird's evil beak.
XI. The Well
Farmer Seth Atwood was past eighty when He tried to
sink that deep well by his door, With only Eb to help him bore and bore. We laughed,
and hoped he'd soon be sane again. And yet, instead, young Eb went crazy, too,
So that they shipped him to the county farm. Seth bricked the well-mouth up as
tight as glue - Then hacked an artery in his gnarled left arm. After the funeral
we felt bound to get Out to that well and rip the bricks away, But all we saw
were iron hand-holds set Down a black hole deeper than we could say. And yet we
put the bricks back - for we found The hole too deep for any line to sound.
XII. The Howler
They told me not to take the Briggs' Hill path That
used to be the highroad through to Zoar, For Goody Watkins, hanged in seventeen-four,
Had left a certain monstrous aftermath. Yet when I disobeyed, and had in view
The vine-hung cottage by the great rock slope, I could not think of elms or hempen
rope, But wondered why the house still seemed so new. Stopping a while to watch
the fading day, I heard faint howls, as from a room upstairs, When through the
ivied panes one sunset ray Struck in, and caught the howler unawares. I glimpsed
- and ran in frenzy from the place, And from a four-pawed thing with human face.
XIII. Hesperia
The winter sunset, flaming beyond spires And chimneys
half-detached from this dull sphere, Opens great gates to some forgotten year
Of elder splendours and divine desires. Expectant wonders burn in those rich fires,
Adventure-fraught, and not untinged with fear; A row of sphinxes where the way
leads clear Toward walls and turrets quivering to far lyres. It is the land where
beauty's meaning flowers; Where every unplaced memory has a source; Where the
great river Time begins its course Down the vast void in starlit streams of hours.
Dreams bring us close - but ancient lore repeats That human tread has never soiled
these streets.
XIV. Star-Winds
It is a certain hour of twilight glooms, Mostly in
autumn, when the star-wind pours Down hilltop streets, deserted out-of-doors,
But shewing early lamplight from snug rooms. The dead leaves rush in strange,
fantastic twists, And chimney-smoke whirls round with alien grace, Heeding geometries
of outer space, While Fomalhaut peers in through southward mists. This is the
hour when moonstruck poets know What fungi sprout in Yuggoth, and what scents
And tints of flowers fill Nithon's continents, Such as in no poor earthly garden
blow. Yet for each dream these winds to us convey, A dozen more of ours they sweep
away!
XV. Antarktos
Deep in my dream the great bird whispered queerly
Of the black cone amid the polar waste; Pushing above the ice-sheet lone and drearly,
By storm-crazed aeons battered and defaced. Hither no living earth-shapes take
their courses, And only pale auroras and faint suns Glow on that pitted rock,
whose primal sources Are guessed at dimly by the Elder Ones. If men should glimpse
it, they would merely wonder What tricky mound of Nature's build they spied; But
the bird told of vaster parts, that under The mile-deep ice-shroud crouch and
brood and bide. God help the dreamer whose mad visions shew Those dead eyes set
in crystal gulfs below!
XVI. The Window
The house was old, with tangled wings outthrown, Of
which no one could ever half keep track, And in a small room somewhat near the
back Was an odd window sealed with ancient stone. There, in a dream-plagued childhood,
quite alone I used to go, where night reigned vague and black; Parting the cobwebs
with a curious lack Of fear, and with a wonder each time grown. One later day
I brought the masons there To find what view my dim forbears had shunned, But
as they pierced the stone, a rush of air Burst from the alien voids that yawned
beyond. They fled - but I peered through and found unrolled All the wild worlds
of which my dreams had told.
XVII. A Memory
There were great steppes, and rocky table-lands Stretching
half-limitless in starlit night, With alien campfires shedding feeble light On
beasts with tinkling bells, in shaggy bands. Far to the south the plain sloped
low and wide To a dark zigzag line of wall that lay Like a huge python of some
primal day Which endless time had chilled and petrified. I shivered oddly in the
cold, thin air, And wondered where I was and how I came, When a cloaked form against
a campfire's glare Rose and approached, and called me by my name. Staring at that
dead face beneath the hood, I ceased to hope - because I understood.
XVIII. The Gardens of Yin
Beyond that wall, whose ancient masonry Reached almost
to the sky in moss-thick towers, There would be terraced gardens, rich with flowers,
And flutter of bird and butterfly and bee. There would be walks, and bridges arching
over Warm lotos-pools reflecting temple eaves, And cherry-trees with delicate
boughs and leaves Against a pink sky where the herons hover. All would be there,
for had not old dreams flung Open the gate to that stone-lantemed maze Where drowsy
streams spin out their winding ways, Trailed by green vines from bending branches
hung? I hurried - but when the wall rose, grim and great, I found there was no
longer any gate.
XIX. The Bells
Year after year I heard that faint, far ringing Of
deep-toned bells on the black midnight wind; Peals from no steeple I could ever
find, But strange, as if across some great void winging. I searched my dreams
and memories for a clue, And thought of all the chimes my visions carried; Of
quiet Innsmouth, where the white gulls tarried Around an ancient spire that once
I knew. Always perplexed I heard those far notes falling, Till one March night
the bleak rain splashing cold Beckoned me back through gateways of recalling To
elder towers where the mad clappers tolled. They tolled - but from the sunless
tides that pour Through sunken valleys on the sea's dead floor.
XX. Night-Gaunts
Out of what crypt they crawl, I cannot tell, But every
night I see the rubbery things, Black, horned, and slender, with membraneous wings,
And tails that bear the bifid barb of hell. They come in legions on the north
wind's swell, With obscene clutch that titillates and stings, Snatching me off
on monstrous voyagings To grey worlds hidden deep in nightmare's well. Over the
jagged peaks of Thok they sweep, Heedless of all the cries I try to make, And
down the nether pits to that foul lake Where the puffed shoggoths splash in doubtful
sleep. But oh! If only they would make some sound, Or wear a face where faces
should be found!
XXI. Nyarlathotep
And at the last from inner Egypt came The strange
dark One to whom the fellahs bowed; Silent and lean and cryptically proud, And
wrapped in fabrics red as sunset flame. Throngs pressed around, frantic for his
commands, But leaving, could not tell what they had heard; While through the nations
spread the awestruck word That wild beasts followed him and licked his hands.
Soon from the sea a noxious birth began; Forgotten lands with weedy spires of
gold; The ground was cleft, and mad auroras rolled Down on the quaking citadels
of man. Then, crushing what he chanced to mould in play, The idiot Chaos blew
Earth's dust away.
XXII. Azathoth
Out in the mindless void the daemon bore me, Past
the bright clusters of dimensioned space, Till neither time nor matter stretched
before me, But only Chaos, without form or place. Here the vast Lord of All in
darkness muttered Things he had dreamed but could not understand, While near him
shapeless bat-things flopped and fluttered In idiot vortices that ray-streams
fanned. They danced insanely to the high, thin whining Of a cracked flute clutched
in a monstrous paw, Whence flow the aimless waves whose chance combining Gives
each frail cosmos its eternal law. "I am His Messenger," the daemon said, As in
contempt he struck his Master's head.
XXIII. Mirage
I do not know if ever it existed - That lost world
floating dimly on Time's stream - And yet I see it often, violet-misted, And shimmering
at the back of some vague dream. There were strange towers and curious lapping
rivers, Labyrinths of wonder, and low vaults of light, And bough-crossed skies
of flame, like that which quivers Wistfully just before a winter's night. Great
moors led off to sedgy shores unpeopled, Where vast birds wheeled, while on a
windswept hill There was a village, ancient and white-steepled, With evening chimes
for which I listen still. I do not know what land it is - or dare Ask when or
why I was, or will be, there.
XXIV. The Canal
Somewhere in dream there is an evil place Where tall,
deserted buildings crowd along A deep, black, narrow channel, reeking strong Of
frightful things whence oily currents race. Lanes with old walls half meeting
overhead Wind off to streets one may or may not know, And feeble moonlight sheds
a spectral glow Over long rows of windows, dark and dead. There are no footfalls,
and the one soft sound Is of the oily water as it glides Under stone bridges,
and along the sides Of its deep flume, to some vague ocean bound. None lives to
tell when that stream washed away Its dream-lost region from the world of clay.
XXV. St. Toad's
"Beware St. Toad's cracked chimes!" I heard him scream
As I plunged into those mad lanes that wind In labyrinths obscure and undefined
South of the river where old centuries dream. He was a furtive figure, bent and
ragged, And in a flash had staggered out of sight, So still I burrowed onward
in the night Toward where more roof-lines rose, malign and jagged. No guide-book
told of what was lurking here - But now I heard another old man shriek: "Beware
St.Toad's cracked chimes!" And growing weak, I paused, when a third greybeard
croaked in fear: "Beware St. Toad's cracked chimes!" Aghast, I fled - Till suddenly
that black spire loomed ahead.
XXVI. The Familiars
John Whateley lived about a mile from town, Up where
the hills begin to huddle thick; We never thought his wits were very quick, Seeing
the way he let his farm run down. He used to waste his time on some queer books
He'd found around the attic of his place, Till funny lines got creased into his
face, And folks all said they didn't like his looks. When he began those night-howls
we declared He'd better be locked up away from harm, So three men from the Aylesbury
town farm Went for him - but came back alone and scared. They'd found him talking
to two crouching things That at their step flew off on great black wings.
XXVII. The Elder Pharos
From Leng, where rocky peaks climb bleak and bare
Under cold stars obscure to human sight, There shoots at dusk a single beam of
light Whose far blue rays make shepherds whine in prayer. They say (though none
has been there) that it comes Out of a pharos in a tower of stone, Where the last
Elder One lives on alone, Talking to Chaos with the beat of drums. The Thing,
they whisper, wears a silken mask Of yellow, whose queer folds appear to hide
A face not of this earth, though none dares ask Just what those features are,
which bulge inside. Many, in man's first youth, sought out that glow, But what
they found, no one will ever know.
XXVIII. Expectancy
I cannot tell why some things hold for me A sense
of unplumbed marvels to befall, Or of a rift in the horizon's wall Opening to
worlds where only gods can be. There is a breathless, vague expectancy, As of
vast ancient pomps I half recall, Or wild adventures, uncorporeal, Ecstasy-fraught,
and as a day-dream free. It is in sunsets and strange city spires, Old villages
and woods and misty downs, South winds, the sea, low hills, and lighted towns,
Old gardens, half-heard songs, and the moon's fires. But though its lure alone
makes life worth living, None gains or guesses what it hints at giving.
XXIX. Nostalgia
Once every year, in autumn's wistful glow, The birds
fly out over an ocean waste, Calling and chattering in a joyous haste To reach
some land their inner memories know. Great terraced gardens where bright blossoms
blow, And lines of mangoes luscious to the taste, And temple-groves with branches
interlaced Over cool paths - all these their vague dreams shew. They search the
sea for marks of their old shore - For the tall city, white and turreted - But
only empty waters stretch ahead, So that at last they turn away once more. Yet
sunken deep where alien polyps throng, The old towers miss their lost, remembered
song.
XXX. Background
I never can be tied to raw, new things, For I first
saw the light in an old town, Where from my window huddled roofs sloped down To
a quaint harbour rich with visionings. Streets with carved doorways where the
sunset beams Flooded old fanlights and small window-panes, And Georgian steeples
topped with gilded vanes - These were the sights that shaped my childhood dreams.
Such treasures, left from times of cautious leaven, Cannot but loose the hold
of flimsier wraiths That flit with shifting ways and muddled faiths Across the
changeless walls of earth and heaven. They cut the moment's thongs and leave me
free To stand alone before eternity.
XXXI. The Dweller
It had been old when Babylon was new; None knows how
long it slept beneath that mound, Where in the end our questing shovels found
Its granite blocks and brought it back to view. There were vast pavements and
foundation-walls, And crumbling slabs and statues, carved to shew Fantastic beings
of some long ago Past anything the world of man recalls. And then we saw those
stone steps leading down Through a choked gate of graven dolomite To some black
haven of eternal night Where elder signs and primal secrets frown. We cleared
a path - but raced in mad retreat When from below we heard those clumping feet.
XXXII. Alienation
His solid flesh had never been away, For each dawn
found him in his usual place, But every night his spirit loved to race Through
gulfs and worlds remote from common day. He had seen Yaddith, yet retained his
mind, And come back safely from the Ghooric zone, When one still night across
curved space was thrown That beckoning piping from the voids behind. He waked
that morning as an older man, And nothing since has looked the same to him. Objects
around float nebulous and dim - False, phantom trifles of some vaster plan. His
folk and friends are now an alien throng To which he struggles vainly to belong.
XXXIII. Harbour Whistles
Over old roofs and past decaying spires The harbour
whistles chant all through the night; Throats from strange ports, and beaches
far and white, And fabulous oceans, ranged in motley choirs. Each to the other
alien and unknown, Yet all, by some obscurely focussed force From brooding gulfs
beyond the Zodiac's course, Fused into one mysterious cosmic drone. Through shadowy
dreams they send a marching line Of still more shadowy shapes and hints and views;
Echoes from outer voids, and subtle clues To things which they themselves cannot
define. And always in that chorus, faintly blent, We catch some notes no earth-ship
ever sent.
XXXIV. Recapture
The way led down a dark, half-wooded heath Where moss-grey
boulders humped above the mould, And curious drops, disquieting and cold, Sprayed
up from unseen streams in gulfs beneath. There was no wind, nor any trace of sound
In puzzling shrub, or alien-featured tree, Nor any view before - till suddenly,
Straight in my path, I saw a monstrous mound. Half to the sky those steep sides
loomed upspread, Rank-grassed, and cluttered by a crumbling flight Of lava stairs
that scaled the fear-topped height In steps too vast for any human tread. I shrieked
- and knew what primal star and year Had sucked me back from man's dream-transient
sphere!
XXXV. Evening Star
I saw it from that hidden, silent place Where the
old wood half shuts the meadow in. It shone through all the sunset's glories -
thin At first, but with a slowly brightening face. Night came, and that lone beacon,
amber-hued, Beat on my sight as never it did of old; The evening star - but grown
a thousandfold More haunting in this hush and solitude. It traced strange pictures
on the quivering air - Half-memories that had always filled my eyes - Vast towers
and gardens; curious seas and skies Of some dim life - I never could tell where.
But now I knew that through the cosmic dome Those rays were calling from my far,
lost home.
XXXVI. Continuity
There is in certain ancient things a trace Of some
dim essence - more than form or weight; A tenuous aether, indeterminate, Yet linked
with all the laws of time and space. A faint, veiled sign of continuities That
outward eyes can never quite descry; Of locked dimensions harbouring years gone
by, And out of reach except for hidden keys. It moves me most when slanting sunbeams
glow On old farm buildings set against a hill, And paint with life the shapes
which linger still From centuries less a dream than this we know. In that strange
light I feel I am not far From the fixt mass whose sides the ages are.
Howard-Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937)
