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XXXI. THE DWELLER
It had been old when Babylon was new;None knows how long it slept beneath the ground,Where in the end our questing shovels foundIts granite blocks, and brought it back to view.There were vast pavements and foundation walls,And crumbling slabs and statues, carved to showFantastic beings of some long agoPast anything the world of man recalls.
And then we saw those stone steps leading downThrough a choked gate of graven dolomiteTo some black haven of eternal nightWhere elder signs and primal secrets frown.We cleared a path—but raced in mad retreatWhen from below we heard those clumping feet.
XXXII. ALIENATION
His solid flesh had never been away,For each dawn found him in his usual place,But every night his spirit loved to raceThrough gulfs and worlds remote from common day.He had seen Yaddith, yet retained his mind,And come back safely from the Ghooric zone,When one still night across curved space was thrownThat beckoning piping from the voids beyond.
He waked that morning as an older man,And nothing since has looked the same to him.Objects around float nebulous and dim—False, phantom trifles of some vaster plan.His folk and friends are now an alien throngTo which he struggles vainly to belong.
XXXIII. HARBOR WHISTLES
Over old roofs and past decaying spiresThe harbor whistles chant all through the night;And fabulous oceans, ranged in motley choirs,Each to the other alien and unknown;Yet all, by some obscurely focussed forceFrom brooding gulfs beyond the Zodiac's course,Fused into one mysterious cosmic drone.
Through shadowy dreams they send a marching lineOf still more shadowy shapes and hints and views;Echoes from outer voids, and subtle cluesTo things which they themselves cannot define.And always in that chorus, faintly blent,We catch some notes no earth-ship ever sent.
