Who penned this lyric? Who this sonnet? Whence
The soul of fire that snared these stars in song?
Who knows? Who cares? A vast indifference
Is all the answer of the marching throng.
THE SINGER IN THE MIST
Weird Tales, April 1938
At birth a witch laid on me monstrous spells,
And I have trod strange highroads all my days,
Turning my feet to gray, unholy ways.
I grope for stems of broken asphodels;
High on the rims of bare, fiend-haunted fells,
I follow cloven tracks that lie ablaze;
And ghosts have led me through the moonlight’s haze
To talk with demons in the granite hells.
Seas crash upon dragon-guarded shores,
Bursting in crimson moons of burning spray,
And iron castles ope to me their doors,
And serpent-women lure with harp and lay.
The misty waves shake now to phantom oars—
Seek not for me; I sail to meet the day.
Table of Contents
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
ALSO BY ROBERT E. HOWARD
INTRODUCTION, by Mark Finn
BLACK CANAAN
ALWAYS COMES EVENING
RED NAILS
SOLOMON KANE’S HOMECOMING
THE BLACK HOUND OF DEATH
THE FIRE OF ASSHURBANIPAL
DIG ME NO GRAVE
THE SOUL-EATER
THE DREAM AND THE SHADOW
WHICH WILL SCARCELY BE UNDERSTOOD
FUTILITY
FRAGMENT
HAUNTING COLUMNS
THE POETS
THE SINGER IN THE MIST
Black Hounds of Death Page 23
