Man And The Cosmos by August Derleth

I discovered Man And The Cosmos by August Derleth, a poem from the cosmicist school of poetry, languishing in the pages of Wonder Stories, April 1935. According to ISFDB it has never been reprinted. When Derleth wrote it he was talking about what he thought would come. Today, at this very moment, people are up there on the International Space Station, living it.

Man and the Cosmos
By August W. Derleth

Death lies athwart the frozen dark
Where never the song of a lark
Has echoed; here breeds the unknown spawn
Of evil, here where there is no dawn.

None but man deserts the light
For probing in this endless night;
None but he dares the icy breath
Of the lurking cosmic death.

Only a tiny atom of flesh
Webbed in an unanswerable mesh
Of questions and burning doubt,
Wanting to known what Life’s about.

And, the generous Mr. Jim Moon, of the Hypnobobs podcast, has today recorded it for our listening pleasure.

|MP3|

[Thanks Jim!]

Posted by Jesse Willis