Говард Филлипс Лавкрафт: «ASTROPHOBOS»

Говард Филлипс Лавкрафт
ASTROPHOBOS



Говард Филлипс ЛавкрафтASTROPHOBOS In the Midnight heaven's burningThrough the ethereal deeps afarOnce I watch'd with restless yearningAn alluring aureate star;Ev'ry eve aloft returningGleaming nigh the Arctic Car. Mystic waves of beauty blendedWith the gorgeous golden raysPhantasies of bliss descendedIn a myrrh'd Elysian haze.In the lyre-born chords extendedHarmonies 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 measureFrom the lute of Israfel. There (I told myself) were shiningWorlds of happiness unknown,Peace and Innocence entwiningBy the Crowned Virtue's throne;Men of light, their thoughts refiningPurer, fairer, than my own. Thus I mus'd when o'er the visionCrept 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 madnessAs behind the beams I peer'd;All was woe that seem'd but gladnessEre 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 fableThe the golden glitter bore;Now I shun the spangled sableThat I watch'd and lov'd before;But the horror, set and stable,Haunts my soul forevermore!

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