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Oh, soul of mine, born out of shadowed hills,

To clouds and winds and ghosts that shun the sun,

How many deaths shall serve to break at last

This heritage which wraps me in the gray

Apparel of ghosts? I search my heart and find

Cimmeria, land of Darkness and the Night.–Robert E. Howard (Cimmeria)

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Night, black as pitch and filled with the wailing of a dead wind, sank like a shapeless specter into the oily waters of the Indian Ocean, leaving a great gray expanse of sullen sea, empty except for a solitary speck that rose and dropped in the long swell.–“Stragella” Hugh B. Cave