The Verse of REH

[samarobrin]

Ever see this work of Howard's before?


Oh, the years they pass
like a bleak jackass,
chasing a flock of fillies;
and I wish to Hell
I could sleep with Nell
on a couch of roses and lilies.

The seagulls fly
in a dreaming sky
and the hoptoad’s smile is bitter;
and the turtle dove
sings a song of love
to the snake and the tiger’s litter.

In the lure of the woods
the bullfrog broods
on the songs of Sappho’s lovers,
and the rattlesnake
o’er the dreaming brake,
flitters and flies and hovers.

Oh, Nell, young Nell,
if I were to tell
of the thoughts that rise within me,
oh, Nell, fair Nell,
if I should tell—
your husband would come and skin me.


If you haven't, it's because it's the opening of his play Songs of Bastards, from a letter to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. March 1929, and probably meant for no eyes but theirs.  It likely hasn't been recognized as a poem because it was written across the page to look like prose.
I've edited the play, which is entirely in rhyme save for a few brief asides, into full verse form to indicate just how much poetry it actually contains.  But it now takes up 23 Microsoft Word pages--too long to include here!  However, if anyone would like to see it, I'll gladly bounce over a copy if you send me an e-mail.

[buxom9sorceress]

interesting to read some REH that is not grim.

is it just a long play about falling in love?



good work. Thanks Sam.

[samarobrin]

It's a goofy operetta-ish thing about one man lusting for another's wife. Here's the Wikipedia entry:

SONGS OF BASTARDS
First appeared in LEWD TALES, 1987 (Chpbk.)
THE LAST OF THE TRUNK OCH BREV I URVAL (Chpbk.)
THE COLLECTED LETTERS OF ROBERT E. HOWARD, VOLUME 1: 1923–1929
This is a play written entirely in verse; from a letter to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. March 1929 (“Salaam: / Black Dawn”); also contains the following poems: “After a Flaming Night” (“Mark of the Beast)’ “A beggar, singing without”; Untitled (“I knocked upon her lattice – soft!”); Untitled (“Let us up in the hills ...”); Untitled (“Life is a lot of hooey”); Untitled (“Men are toys ...”)

[samarobrin]

I'm still tracking down the song snippets REH cited here and there, usually leaving traces of his style sticking to them. I just found some in a letter he wrote to Lovecraft, one of which goes:

"Old Johnny McGruder, he went on a spree,
He captured a gunboat and started to sea,
He hauled down the colors, both red, white and green!
Hurrah, hurrah, for the bonny Blue Flag!"

It's not the famous "The Bonnie Blue Flag"--it neither suits the rhythm nor matches any set of lyrics I've been able to find.  Here's the song, which, as you can tell, those lyrics couldn't withstand the torture necessary to fit them to the tune!
So does anyone have any clue as to what song it might actually be?

[deuce]

Rusty Burke has done some interesting research on "Recompense" and other Howard poems here:



www.robert-e-howard.org/IronHarp4.html#recompense

[deuce]

Tangential, but... A rare copy of Always Comes Evening was stolen (along with $300K of other rare books) in Oakland:


www.berkeleyside.com/2016/02/19/van-with-350k-of-rare-books-stolen-man-arrested-but-books-are-missing/


Some people are blaming the bookseller who was robbed. We live in decadent times.

[samarobrin]

There's an untitled quatrain listed in THE NEVERENDING HUNT that goes like this:

They were there, in the distance dreaming
Their dreams that were worn and old;
They were there, to his frenzied seeming,
Still burrowing down for gold.

It came from an April 23, 1933, letter to Lovecraft.

I was looking over sources regarding Howard's other literary preferences recently, and found references to a western author I'd never heard of named H. H. Knibbs. I checked out some of his poetry, and it TOTALLY BLEW ME AWAY! Howard fans are here advised to look up his poems as soon as may be--they won't disappoint.
I'll cite one particular tale of ghosts and gold to get you started:

The Valley That God Forgot
H. H. Knibbs

Out in the desert spaces, edged by a hazy blue,
Davison sought the faces of the long-lost friends he knew:
They were there, in the distance dreaming
Their dreams that were worn and old;
They were there, to his frenzied seeming,
Still burrowing down for gold.

Davison’s face was leather; his mouth was a swollen blot,
His mind was a floating feather, in The Valley That God Forgot;
Wild as a dog gone loco,
Or sullen or meek, by turns,
He mumbled a “Poco! Poco!”
And whispered of pools and ferns.

Gold!   Why his, for the finding!   But water was never found,
Save in deep caverns winding miles through the underground:
Cool, far, shadowy places
Edged by the mirrored trees,
When—Davison saw the faces!
And fear let loose his knees.

There was Shorty who owed him money, and Billing who bossed the crowd;
And Steve whom the boys called “Sunny,” and Collins who talked so loud:
Miguel with the handsome daughter,
And the rustler, Ed McCray;
Five—and they begged for water,
And offered him gold, in pay.

Gold? It was never cheaper. And Davison shook his head:
“The price of a drink is steeper out here than in town,” he said.
He laughed as they mouthed and muttered
Through lips that were cracked and dried;
The pulse in his ear-drum fluttered:
“I’m through with the game!” he cried.

“I’m through!”  And he knelt and fumbled the cap of his dry canteen
Then, rising, he swayed and stumbled into a black ravine:
His ghostly comrades followed,
For Davison’s end was near,
And a shallow grave they hollowed,
When up from it, cool and clear

Bubbled the water—hidden a pick-stroke beneath the sand;
Davison, phantom-ridden, scooped with a shaking hand . . .
Davison swears they made it,
The Well where we drank to-day.
Davison’s game? He played it
And won—so the town-folk say:

Called it, The Morning-Glory—near those abandoned stamps,
And Davison’s crazy story was told in a hundred camps:
Time and the times have tamed it,
His yarn—and this desert spot,
But I’m strong for the man who named it,
The Valley That God Forgot.


I suppose I rather telegraphed ahead about the surprise beginning--but as is plain, that verse assumed to be Howard's turns out to have a quotation. I checked A MEANS TO FREEDOM, where it is identified in a footnote, but thought the earlier error could stand correcting.
I'm going to go read some more Knibbs poems, now--and I suggest everybody else do likewise!

[deuce]

Feb 21, 2016 7:30:10 GMT -5 samarobrin said:

There's an untitled quatrain listed in THE NEVERENDING HUNT that goes like this:

They were there, in the distance dreaming
Their dreams that were worn and old;
They were there, to his frenzied seeming,
Still burrowing down for gold.

It came from an April 23, 1933, letter to Lovecraft.

I was looking over sources regarding Howard's other literary preferences recently, and found references to a western author I'd never heard of named H. H. Knibbs. I checked out some of his poetry, and it TOTALLY BLEW ME AWAY! Howard fans are here advised to look up his poems as soon as may be--they won't disappoint.
I'll cite one particular tale of ghosts and gold to get you started:

The Valley That God Forgot
H. H. Knibbs

Out in the desert spaces, edged by a hazy blue,
Davison sought the faces of the long-lost friends he knew:
They were there, in the distance dreaming
Their dreams that were worn and old;
They were there, to his frenzied seeming,
Still burrowing down for gold.

Davison’s face was leather; his mouth was a swollen blot,
His mind was a floating feather, in The Valley That God Forgot;
Wild as a dog gone loco,
Or sullen or meek, by turns,
He mumbled a “Poco! Poco!”
And whispered of pools and ferns.

Gold!   Why his, for the finding!   But water was never found,
Save in deep caverns winding miles through the underground:
Cool, far, shadowy places
Edged by the mirrored trees,
When—Davison saw the faces!
And fear let loose his knees.

There was Shorty who owed him money, and Billing who bossed the crowd;
And Steve whom the boys called “Sunny,” and Collins who talked so loud:
Miguel with the handsome daughter,
And the rustler, Ed McCray;
Five—and they begged for water,
And offered him gold, in pay.

Gold? It was never cheaper. And Davison shook his head:
“The price of a drink is steeper out here than in town,” he said.
He laughed as they mouthed and muttered
Through lips that were cracked and dried;
The pulse in his ear-drum fluttered:
“I’m through with the game!” he cried.

“I’m through!”  And he knelt and fumbled the cap of his dry canteen
Then, rising, he swayed and stumbled into a black ravine:
His ghostly comrades followed,
For Davison’s end was near,
And a shallow grave they hollowed,
When up from it, cool and clear

Bubbled the water—hidden a pick-stroke beneath the sand;
Davison, phantom-ridden, scooped with a shaking hand . . .
Davison swears they made it,
The Well where we drank to-day.
Davison’s game? He played it
And won—so the town-folk say:

Called it, The Morning-Glory—near those abandoned stamps,
And Davison’s crazy story was told in a hundred camps:
Time and the times have tamed it,
His yarn—and this desert spot,
But I’m strong for the man who named it,
The Valley That God Forgot.


I suppose I rather telegraphed ahead about the surprise beginning--but as is plain, that verse assumed to be Howard's turns out to have a quotation. I checked A MEANS TO FREEDOM, where it is identified in a footnote, but thought the earlier error could stand correcting.
I'm going to go read some more Knibbs poems, now--and I suggest everybody else do likewise!

Hmmm. I thought I'd posted about Knibbs on the old forum, but I checked just now and I didn't do so.

Here's the quote from REH that tips us off:

"For poetry, I like Robert W. Service, Kipling, John Masefield, James Elroy Flecker, Vansittart, Sidney Lanier, Edgar Allen Poe, the Benets  Stephen Vincent better than William Rose  , Walter de la Mare, Rupert Brooke, Siegfried Sassoon, Francis Ledwedge, Omar Khayyam, Joe Moncure March, Nathalia Crane, Henry Herbert Knibbs, Lord Dunsany, G.K. Chesterton, Bret Harte, Oscar Wilde, Longfellow, Tennyson, Swinburne, Viereck, Alfred Noyes, and, again, yourself." -- REH to HPL, December 1932

I believe that REH may have been apprised of Knibbs by Burroughs' Return of the Mucker (REH owned it), where Knibbs' poetry played a notable role:


www.erbzine.com/mag9/0950.html

Here's a review of a Knibbs novel:


buddiesinthesaddle.blogspot.com/2011/01/h-h-knibbs-overland-red-1914.html

 

[deuce]

A poem Howard wrote about his birthday:



I Praise My Nativity



Oh, evil the day that I was born, like a tale that a witch has told;

I came to birth on a bitter morn, when the sky was dim and cold.

The god that girds the loins of Fate and sends the nighttime rain,

He diced my game on an iron plate with dice carved out of pain.

"This for the shadow of hope," laughed he, as the numbers glinted up,

"This for a spell and this for hell, and this for the bitter cup."



A Shadow came out of the gloom of night and covered me with his cowl

That carried the curse of The Truer Sight and the blindness of the owl.

Oh, evil the day that I was born, triply I curse the day,

And I would to God I had died that morn and passed like the ocean spray.



~REH~

[trescuinge]

Deuce had posted this link above.

www.robert-e-howard.org/IronHarp4.html#fighting

As a bit of trivia, this poem was a favorite of Michael Collins. He memorized it and used to recite it at parties.

[deuce]

Feb 21, 2016 18:36:59 GMT -5 trescuinge said:

Deuce had posted this link above.

www.robert-e-howard.org/IronHarp4.html#fighting

As a bit of trivia, this poem was a favorite of Michael Collins. He memorized it and used to recite it at parties.

Cool! I didn't know that about Collins. I'm sure REH would've gotten a kick out of knowing that.

[deuce]

Victory


Red fires in the North are glowing bright,

And tom-tom thump through the whispering night.

Aye, the jungle knows to the least leaf-blade

That the men of Mafu are back from the raid:


Back with the heads of a hundred braves,

Back with a hundred female slaves.

Aye, the men for the loot are throwing lots,

While the women bend to the cooking pots.


And the night wind blows,

And the jungle knows,

That the men of Mafu

Have smote their foes.


Chiefs and councillors haste to glut

At the feast in Mafu’s palace-hut.

They stride through the door and a bead of red

Unheeded falls on each feathered head.


And scarce an eye turns toward the ghastly thing

That once was the head of Goru’s king:

He that died at the height of pride,

Hung high, feet to a cross-beam tied.


And the echoes thrum

To the roaring drum

That boasts of the foemen

Mafu’s overcome.


And fire-light gleams as lithe forms prance;

Mafu’s warriors spin in a blood-crazed dance.

The great fire chuckles in crimson blast

As the naked, leaping forms lurch past.


Like shadow-things in the shifting light,

They leap in a ghastly voodoo rite,

And the firelight gleams on white teeth bare

In fierce-eyed faces, amid flying hair.


And the dancers whirl

Through the shadowy swirl,

Mocking the shrieks

Of a captive girl.


Far to the East ’neath a baobab tree,

By a sullen river that runs to the sea,

Smolders a heap of ruins laid

In the midst of a ruined palisade.


Veiled by a grisly, yellow smoke,

No sound is heard save the vulture’s croak

And the jackals’ snarl at the cindered bones—

Unheeding, the sullen river drones.


And the river flows,

And the night wind blows,

Sifting the ashes

Of Mafu’s foes.

~ REH ~

[deuce]

The Voices Waken Memory

The blind black shadows reach inhuman arms

To draw me into darkness once again;

The brooding night wind hints of nameless harms,

And down the shadowed hill a vague refrain

Bears half-remembered ghosts to haunt my soul,

Like far-off neighing of the nightmare's foal.



But let me fix my phantom-shadowed eyes

Hard on the stars — pale points of silver light—

Here is the borderlad — here reason lies—

There, vision, gryphons, Nothing, and the Night.

Down, down, red spectres, down, and rack me not!

Out, wolves of Hell! Oh God, my pulses thrum;

The night grows fierce and blind and red and hot,

And nearer still a frim insistent drum.



I will not look into the shadows — No!

The star shall grip and hold my frantic gaze—

But even in the stars black visions grow,

And dragons writhe with iron eyes ablaze.

Oh Gods that raised my blindness with your curse,

And let me see the horrid shapes behind

All outward veils that cloak the universe,

The loathsome demon-spells that bind and blind,

Since even the stars are noisome, foul and fell,

Let me glut deep with memory dreams of hell.

~ REH ~

[deuce]

This poem has an unusual structure.



The Gods of the Jungle Drums

The Mutter of drums, jungle drums!

Over the bay their murmur comes;

The dark waves ruffle unto their beat

As over the water on unseen feet

Eery and phantom, spectre fleet,

They glide and float, each ghostly note—

Eyes in the shadows that gleam and gloat—

The gods of the jungle drums.


Spears will flash in the crimson dawn—

Boom! Boom!—say the hidden drums—

Boats will leap from the dusky shore

Steered by Satan’s own yelling spawn.

Then red assegai and flying oar

And the battle yell and the war horn’s roar

Will drown the sound of the drums.


Fires will gleam in the kraal tonight—

Boom! Boom!—say the jungle drums—

Crimson and fierce their leaping light

Red as the spears that swept the fight.

There will the warriors boast their might

And shout their fame as about the flame

They leap in a dance that fiends would shame.


For the cooking pots are brimming o’er

And the red-stained war-spears clash no more;

Stilled is the giant war conch’s roar;

And the drums held sway as they did before—

The magical jungle drums.

~ REH ~

[deuce]

A great rendition of Howard's classic "Recompense".