Tag: poetry

Alethia Phrikodes by H.P. Lovecraft

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Alethia Phrikodes by H.P. Lovecraft

Alethia Phrikodes is a long poem by H.P. Lovecraft. The title, by the way, is from Greek, and means “Frightful Truth.”

Following the title there is a short line, in Latin, reading:

“Omnia risus et omnis pulvis et omna nihil.”

Omni = all
risus = laughter
pulvis = dust
nihil = nothing

That could be translated to:

“Everything is a laugh and everything is nothing.” or maybe “All is a laugh and all is dust.” or “All laughter is all dust is all nothing.” or “All the laughter and all the dust and all the nothing.”

I found Alethia Phrikodes in the pages of the July 1952 issue of Weird Tales. But, subsequent research shows that it’s actually a segment extracted from an even longer, and much earlier, poem, entitled The Poe-et’s Nightmare (first published in The Vagrant, No. 8, July 1918).

Beyond being really cool Alethia Phrikodes is also, apparently, Lovecraft’s “first enunciation of cosmicism.”*

And so here’s Mr. Jim Moon’s beautiful narration of it |MP3| (12 minutes). To go with it check out this |PDF| which includes the text and the gorgeous art by Jon Arfstrom (from it’s publication in Weird Tales).

Posted by Jesse Willis

*Notes on a manuscript version are available HERE.

The Valley Of Unrest by Edgar Allan Poe

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Though Edgar Allan Poe’s The Valley Of Unrest predates most post-apocalyptic ideas, this beautiful poem, about an empty valley, seems to me about exactly that.

Let me plant a seed for you, that may grow as you read it:

What are the azure towers if not skyscrapers?

The Valley Of Unrest by Edgar Allan Poe

Once it smiled a silent dell
Where the people did not dwell;
They had gone unto the wars,
Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,
Nightly, from their azure towers,
To keep watch above the flowers,
In the midst of which all day
The red sunlight lazily lay.
Now each visitor shall confess
The sad valley’s restlessness.
Nothing there is motionless —
Nothing save the airs that brood
Over the magic solitude.
Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees
That palpitate like the chill seas
Around the misty Hebrides!
Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven
That rustle through the unquiet Heaven
Uneasily, from morn till even,
Over the violets there that lie
In myriad types of the human eye —
Over the lilies there that wave
And weep above a nameless grave!
They wave:— from out their fragrant tops
Eternal dews come down in drops.
They weep:— from off their delicate stems
Perennial tears descend in gems.

Edmund Dulac illustration of The Valley Of Unrest

First published in 1831, as “The Valley Of Nis” The Valley Of Unrest would take its final form in the April 1845 issue of the American Review:

The Valley Of Unrest by Edgar A. Poe

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Port by H.P. Lovecraft

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Part of the Fungi From Yuggoth sequence of sonnets, this poem, The Port, is one of two featuring the mouldering town of Innsmouth, Massachusetts (as depicted in H.P. Lovecraft’s novella The Shadow Over Innsmouth). It also places the seaport town in relation to another of his famous fictional places, Arkham.

The Port
By H.P. Lovecraft

Ten miles from Arkham I had struck the trail
That rides the cliff-edge over Boynton Beach,
And hoped that just at sunset I could reach
The crest that looks on Innsmouth in the vale.
Far out at sea was a retreating sail,
White as hard years of ancient winds could bleach,
But evil with some portent beyond speech,
So that I did not wave my hand or hail.

Sails out of lnnsmouth! echoing old renown
Of long-dead times. But now a too-swift night
Is closing in, and I have reached the height
Whence I so often scan the distant town.
The spires and roofs are there – but look! The gloom
Sinks on dark lanes, as lightless as the tomb!

And here’s the original art by Boris Dolgov:

The Port by H.P. Lovecraft

Listen to Mister Jim Moon’s reading of it: |MP3|

Posted by Jesse Willis

Listen To Genius: Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti

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I listened to a great episode of BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time about Christina Rossetti recently. I was fascinated by their brief discussion of her poem Goblin Market. Melvyn Bragg and guests described it as:

‘celebrated, fascinating, bizarre, extraordinary, powerful, strange, lascivious, and religious.’

I tracked down a reading, a very good one, and I think you’ll agree it is really amazing!

This poem is totally sexual, yet does not feature a word of sex. Full of lesbianism, incest, fruit and at least nine kinds of wow!

Listen To Genius!Goblin Market
By Christina Rossetti; Read by Kate Reading
1 |MP3| – Approx. 23 Minutes [POETRY]
Publisher: Redwood Audiobooks (Listen To Genius)
Published: 2008?
Source: Listen To Genius
Lizzie and Laura are two innocent sisters inhabiting a beautiful “per-raphaelite” fairy tale pastoral land. They hear the calls of the goblin men, sample the fruit once, buy’s a curl of her hair. First published in 1862.

Here’s a |PDF| featuring illustrations by Rossetti’s brother.

And behold a snippet from John Bolton‘s gorgeous 1983 comics adaptation of Goblin Market:

Goblin Market ilustration by John Bolton

Posted by Jesse Willis

The City In The Sea by Edgar Allan Poe

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The City In The Sea

The City in the Sea by Edgar Allan Poe

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.

No rays from the holy heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently-
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free-
Up domes- up spires- up kingly halls-
Up fanes- up Babylon-like walls-
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers-
Up many and many a marvellous shrine
Whose wreathed friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.

There open fanes and gaping graves
Yawn level with the luminous waves;
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol’s diamond eye-
Not the gaily-jewelled dead
Tempt the waters from their bed;
For no ripples curl, alas!
Along that wilderness of glass-
No swellings tell that winds may be
Upon some far-off happier sea-
No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas less hideously serene.

But lo, a stir is in the air!
The wave- there is a movement there!
As if the towers had thrust aside,
In slightly sinking, the dull tide-
As if their tops had feebly given
A void within the filmy Heaven.
The waves have now a redder glow-
The hours are breathing faint and low-
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
Shall do it reverence.

Here’s the audio, as narrated by Mister Jim Moon:

The City In The Sea was published in this form in the Broadway Journal, August 30, 1845:

The City In The Sea: A Prophecy by Edgar Allan Poe

The City In The Sea

Posted by Jesse Willis