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Dim, dubious, bat-like creatures seemed to be flitting to and fro between one of the stone vats and the group that toiled like sculptors, clothing the bony foot with a reddish plasm which they applied and moulded like so much clay. Gaspard thought, but was not certain later, that this plasm, which gleamed as if with mingled blood and fire, was being brought from the rosy-litten vat in vessels borne by the claws of the shadowy flying creatures. None of them, however, approached the other vat, whose wannish light was momently enfeebled, as if it were dying down. –Clark Ashton Smith (The Colossus of Ylourgne)

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Away with us he’s going,
The solemn-eyed:
He’ll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than he can understand.–William Butler Yeats (The Stolen Child)

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Which Earth and Heaven could not convulse,
A mighty lesson we inherit:
Thou art a symbol and a sign
To Mortals of their fate and force;
Like thee, Man is in part divine,
A troubled stream from a pure source;
And Man in portions can foresee
His own funereal destiny;
His wretchedness, and his resistance,
And his sad unallied existence:
To which his Spirit may oppose
Itself—and equal to all woes,
And a firm will, and a deep sense,
Which even in torture can descry
Its own concenter’d recompense,
Triumphant where it dares defy,
And making Death a Victory.–Lord Byron (Prometheus)

#halloween #youtube #halloween2023 #youtubeshorts #horrorstories #booktube #shapeshifter #authortube #lovecraft ‘The combined shock of the revelation and of the abrupt command gave me a kind of paralysis, and in my terror my mind again opened to the impressions coming from what Tillinghast called “beyond”.’ –H.P. Lovecraft (From Beyond) https://youtube.com/@dwellerofthedark?sub_confirmation=1 https://youtube.com/shorts/gaZAcayE96s?feature=share https://youtu.be/3UjTY8cLLPc https://youtube.com/shorts/z48NBlWR2uk?feature=share https://youtube.com/shorts/yQkChZJGTK4?feature=share https://youtube.com/shorts/BepPwq6KGAs?feature=share https://youtube.com/shorts/paxzvJeW0-0?feature=share https://youtube.com/shorts/-XOTSyBL6a8?feature=share […]

#halloween #halloween2023 #halloween2020 #halloween2021 #horrorstories #horrorstory #horrorauthor #horrorwriter The skies they were ashen and sober; The leaves they were crispéd and sere— The leaves they were withering and sere; It was night in the lonesome October Of my most immemorial year; It was hard by the dim lake of Auber, In the misty mid region […]

#witch #tamoshanter #horrorstories #witchesofinstagram #scotland #witches #witchcraft #horrorstories #horrorstory #booktube #halloween #authortube #robertburns #horrorauthor ‘Among the bonny winding banks, Where Doon rins, wimplin’ clear, Where Bruce ance ruled the martial ranks, And shook his Carrick spear, Some merry, friendly, country-folks, Together did convene, To burn their nits, and pou their stocks, And haud their Halloween […]

#cimmerianseptember #robertehoward #booktube #conan #horrortale #horrorstories #horrorshorts #horrorstory #conanthebarbarian #barbarian It was a gloomy land that seemed to hold All winds and clouds and dreams that shun the sun, With bare boughs rattling in the lonesome winds, And the dark woodlands brooding over all, Not even lightened by the rare dim sun Which made squat […]

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Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
“Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath sent thee
Respite—respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore;
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”–Edgar Allan Poe (The Raven)

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“Pondering these things Haïta became melancholy and morose. He no longer spoke cheerfully to his flock, nor ran with alacrity to the shrine of Hastur. In every breeze he heard whispers of malign deities whose existence he now first observed. Every cloud was a portent signifying disaster, and the darkness was full of terrors.”—Ambrose Bierce (Haita the Shepherd)