To Howard Phillips Lovecraft

Lover of hills and fields and towns antique, How hast thou wandered hence On ways not found before, Beyond the dawnward spires of Providence? Hast thou gone forth to seek Some older bourn than these— Some Arkham of the prime and central wizardries? Or, with familiar felidae, Dost now some new and secret wood explore, A little past the senses' farther wall— Where spring and sunset charm the eternal path From Earth to ether in dimensions nemoral? Or has the Silver Key Opened perchance for thee Wonders and dreams and worlds ulterior? Hast thou gone home to Ulthar or to Pnath? Has the high king who reigns in dim Kadath Called back his courtly, sage ambassador? Or darkling Cthulhu sent The sign which makes thee now a councilor Within that foundered fortress of the deep Where the Old Ones stir in sleep Till mighty temblors shake their slumbering continent? Lo! in this little interim of days How far thy feet are sped Upon the fabulous and mooted ways Where walk the mythic dead! For us the grief, for us the mystery. . . . And yet thou art not gone Nor given wholly unto dream and dust: For, even upon This lonely western hill of Averoigne Thy flesh had never visited, I meet some wise and sentient wraith of thee, Some undeparting presence, gracious and august. More luminous for thee the vernal grass, More magically dark the Druid stone, And in the mind thou art forever shown As in a magic glass; And from the spirit's page thy runes can never pass.