Now I know the mysteries of the sea,
Tranquil emerald hues, emerald blues, enrapture me,
Forever embraced with the mermaid queen,
Now I know why the mariner nervously glances,
Why no one on Grand Isle will ever say he died.
For I too, will never die.
They say he never died!
In the night his spirit glides,
Through the cold the sea roars,
Pierre lives on forevermore.
Tranquil emerald hues, emerald blues, enrapture me,
Forever embraced with the mermaid queen,
Now I know why the mariner nervously glances,
Why no one on Grand Isle will ever say he died.
For I too, will never die.
They say he never died!
In the night his spirit glides,
Through the cold the sea roars,
Pierre lives on forevermore.
—HE NEVER DIED
‘While one watches over the dead, one can hear the strigae: they sing airs that carry one away and which, despite oneself, one obeys.’ –MARCEL SCHWOB (The Strigae)
Of the long dead, who lived therein,
Paused by the cold hearth I felt the tendrils of hot sin,
Call of the bed, lover’s sigh made my head spin,
Head all aswirl, my mind lit in colors ablaze,
Will I survive this Christmas witch’s love haze?
Will I survive this Christmas witch’s love haze?
–CHRISTMAS WITCH
I call…I call…I call to you,
I call…I call…I call to you,
I call to you,
Lover hear…lover hear…lover hear my pleas!
Lover hear…lover hear…lover hear my pleas!
Lover come….lover come…lover come warm me in the snow,
Lover come….lover come…lover come warm me in the snow.
–SNOW ANGEL
What had I seen back in 1989? What was the memory I was recollecting, so long ago, sending my old ticker to thundering like rattling tin during a hurricane? More importantly, why did I suffer three months of God-awful nightmares after that not-so-great experience? Haunting dreams so bad, evil visions so unnerving, that they made me erratic enough to swear off booze. Well, on the latter, at least habanero peach whiskey.
–ONE SCOTCH, ONE BOURBON, & ONE BEER
‘The transference of emotion is a phenomenon so common, so constantly witnessed, that mankind in general have long ceased to be conscious of its existence, as a thing worth our wonder or consideration, regarding it as being as natural and commonplace as the transference of things that act by the ascertained laws of matter. Nobody, for instance, is surprised, if, when the room is too hot, the opening of a window causes the cold fresh air of outside to be transferred into the room, and in the same way no one is surprised when into the same room, perhaps, which we will imagine as being peopled with dull and gloomy persons, there enters some one of fresh and sunny mind, who instantly brings into the stuffy mental atmosphere a change analogous to that of the opened windows.
–E.F. Benson (THE TERROR BY NIGHT)
The grass so green, we so loved,
Let it grow endlessly around my quiet tomb,
Whilst you dance and sing in silver showers little dove,
Kissed by shimmering dewdrops from the blades so wet,
Remember me always, long after our love smolders red ember,
Keep my soul scorched in your heart—never to forget. Always remember.
–Dweller of the Dark (LOVE UNDEAD)
‘Again the withered hag poured forth the monotonous words of a prayer that was not meant to be acceptable in Heaven; and soon, in the pauses of her breath, strange murmurings began to thicken, gradually increasing so as to drown and overpower the charm by which they grew. Shrieks pierced through the obscurity of sound, and were succeeded by the singing of sweet female voices, which in their turn gave way to a wild roar of laughter, broken suddenly by groanings and sobs, forming altogether a ghastly confusion of terror and mourning and mirth.’
–NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE (The Hollow of the Three Hills)
“Not long after she had gone, a biting wind came up, and close upon it a fierce storm. Father had already repented his hasty action, and sent some of the men to look for the girl. They didn’t find her, but in the morning she was found frozen to death on the long slope of the hill to the west.”
–August Derleth (THE DRIFTING SNOW)
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)
Intelligence without the soul to balance it must be of necessity evil—JOHN STEINBECK (The Affair at 7 Rue de M–)
Resting immortal amongst the asphodels,
Resting immortal amongst the asphodels,
Resting immortal in visions wonder-drowned,
In Lethean ecstasy starlit bound,
Ageless, lost, locked away from the cruel world,
Showered in golden magic and glory crowned.
–CHALICE
HIS voice came to us again. He said, at first, that he saw nothing in the abyss below him. Then he gasped, swayed, and almost lost his balance. We could see the sweat standing out on his brow and neck, soaking his blue shirt. There were things in the abyss, he said in hoarse tones, great shapes that were like blobs of utter blackness, yet which he knew to be alive. From the central masses of their beings he could see them shoot forth incredibly long, filamentine tentacles. They moved themselves forward and backward — horizontally, but could not move vertically, it seemed. They were, he thought, nothing but living shadows.
Robert A.W. Lowndes (THE ABYSS)
Bark at the Moon, scream as a madman,
Five decades have past golden father of the dark,
Voice pure fire, pure blues in metal desire,
Spilled your sins as easily as blood on black altar,
Kept it real growing the red army to stay,
Kept them hypocrites screamin’ the Devil’s at play.
–KING OF DARKNESS
