#lovecraft

Astrophobos

In the midnight heavens burning
Thro’ ethereal deeps afar,
Once I watch’d with restless yearning
An alluring, aureate star;
Ev’ry eye aloft returning,
Gleaming nigh the Arctic car.

Mystic waves of beauty blended
With the gorgeous golden rays;
Phantasies of bliss descended
In a myrrh’d Elysian haze;
And in lyre-born chords extended
Harmonies of Lydian lays.

There (thought I) lies scenes of pleasure,
Where the free and blessed dwell,
And each moment bears a treasure
Freighted with a lotus-spell,
And there floats a liquid measure
From the lute of Israfel.

There (I told myself) were shining
Worlds of happiness unknown,
Peace and Innocence entwining
By the Crowned Virtue’s throne;
Men of light, their thoughts refining
Purer, fairer, than our own.

Thus I mus’d, when o’er the vision
Crept 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 sadness
As behind the beams I peer’d;
All was woe that seem’d but gladness
Ere my gaze with truth was sear’d;
Cacodaemons, mir’d with madness,
Thro’ the fever’d flick’ring leer’d.

Now I know the fiendish fable
That the golden glitter bore;
Now I shun the spangled sable
That I watch’d and lov’d before;
But the horror, set and stable,
Haunts my soul for evermore.

– H. P. Lovecraft, 1918 (https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/poetry/p122.aspx)

source:https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/eldritch-and-cosmic-horror.38110/post-9661131 (Leila Hann, 2017)

Imagine a lawn with a garden.

In one corner of the lawn, nestled under some bushes, is a colony of tiny, tiny black ants (like the itty bitty ones you find in your kitchen sometimes), Homo sapiens sapiens. They don’t usually wander far from their nest, and often get lost or killed by other things when they do. There are probably other black ant nests around the lawn, but they’re too far away to be reached.

Here and there across the grounds are some colonies of larger, red ants. MiGo, Elder Things, etc. They’re big enough to step right over or on a black ant, and their size and toughness lets them range much further from their colonies. Some of them raid the black ant nest for food once in a while. The black ants can sort of fend off a handful of red ants, but not when they attack in any serious numbers.

A rabbit named Cthulhu is digging a warren under the garden. He doesn’t care one way or the other about ants, but his burrow will sometimes intersect with their nests. If he hits one of the red ant nests, the red ants will bite and sting him until he goes away, though they’ll take massive losses before he does. If he hits the black ant nest, it will be totally collapsed, and the black ants (whos jaws can’t get through his fur/skin) will die out without any way of even slowing him down.

The garden has a hired caretaker/gardener named Yog-Sothoth. Does his daily rounds, watering the plants, mowing the lawn (which sucks up ants accidentally), pruning the bushes, etc. If the ants get too numerous, he’ll spray them. If the rabbit starts eating the flowers, he’ll put out traps for it. Otherwise, the animals are beneath his notice.

The garden is owned by this rich guy named Azathoth. He rarely even comes back here, and just sits on his deck chair in the lawn and sips lemonade when he does. He’s thinking about maybe getting rid of the garden and putting a pool there instead.

Azathoth has a six year old son named Nyarlathotep. Nyarlathotep isn’t a bad kid, he’s just at that age when being cruel to animals is fascinating to children. He burns ants with his magnifying glass, grabs workers from different nests and makes them fight, chases the rabbit when he sees it, etc. Yog-Sothoth is sometimes annoyed by his antics, but he’s the owner’s kid so whatever.

“May the old gods be birthed anew.”

“Unlike the other malignant, cruel mockeries of man and sea, this one possesses uncanny charm.”