The Verse of REH

[Von K]

Mar 31, 2018 8:33:38 GMT -5 deuce said:

Larry D. Thomas is the Poet Laureate of Texas. REH scholar Paul Herman introduced Thomas to REH's poetry in 2009. Thomas was the Guest of Honor at Howard Days 2011. In the interview below, he has nothing but praise for Howard.

Thanks Deuce. Larry has some great insights.

[deuce]

Mad Minstrel was a French prog metal band that used REH verse for lyrics:


web.archive.org/web/20021209023933/http://jerome.chaboseau.free.fr:80/english.htm


I have to say I'm surprised this hasn't been done more in the past. Plenty of bands do tunes about REH's creations, but few do the man the honor of setting his immortal words to music.

[deuce]

The Song of the Bats


The dusk was on the mountain

And the stars were dim and frail

When the bats came flying, flying

From the river and the vale

To wheel against the twilight

And sing their witchy tale.



"We were kings of old!" they chanted,

"Rulers of a world enchanted;

"Every nation of creation

"Owned our lordship over men.

"Diadems of power crowned us,

"Then rose Solomon to confound us,

"In the form of beasts he bound us,

"So our rule was broken then."



Whirling, wheeling into westward,

Fled they in their phantom flight;

Was it but a wing-beat music

Murmured through the star-gemmed night?

Or the singing of a ghost clan

Whispering of forgotten might?

~ REH ~

[deuce]

Ambition


Build me a gibbet against the sky,

Solid and strong and long miles high,

Let me hang where the high winds blow

That never stoop to the world below,

And the great clouds lumber by.

Let the people who toil below

See me swaying to and fro,

See me swinging the aeons through,

A dancing dot in the distant blue.

~ REH ~

[deuce]

The Adventurer's Mistress


The fogs of night
Fling banners red
To cloak the fading sun.
And I haste to the height
Of the mountain head;
O'er sombre valleys silently spread
Where murmur the ghosts of forgotten dead,
Through the star-gleam glance
I go to dance
With my mistress, the Hooded One.

Now, as the night winds drone their dree
From the hidden caves of the ghostly sea,
And trees below wave dim in the vale,
And shadows flit through the star-light pale,
Weird night-tunes peal as we weave and reel
Like a maiden leal
And her cavalier.
But a grisly maid
Is the flitting shade
That sways with me through the moon-lit glade;
And the boldest knight
Like the poorest wight would flee the sight
With a ghastly fear.
But on we dance 'neath an eery sky
And light we prance, old Death and I!

Ah, beldame Death, old beldame Death!
We've tripped it many a time!
Our flying feet have weaved their beat
From the line to the Arctic clime.
I've felt your kiss in the gulf's abyss
And the ooze of the tropic slime.
Your barren bones
Gleam a dreary white.
Through your lank ribs drone
The wind of the night.
An eery glimmer gleams and lies
In the empty sockets of your eyes,
Bleached as white as the wings of a gull
And you wear a garland upon your skull
Of ferns that grow through the swampy fen
Through the hidden bones of murdered men;
Of moss from the shores of the mid-night sea
Where hulls of ships strew the silent lea.

Now first with the left foot,
Then with the right;
Footing it featly through the night.
Soul to demon and fiend to man
We've danced this dance since Time began.

Around the world
Have flown our feet
In a dizzy whirl
But our lips ne'er meet.
T'is a grisly play
And I trip and sway
With her fleshless face a span away;
And her skeleton hand is at my wrist
But I swerve aside with a dexter twist
As she seeks to press her grim caress
Upon my lips. And she hops and skips.
And she leaps and trips
With her bones a-clank
Over barren stone
And waving grass
And the night-winds drone
As we meet and pass
And whirl again where the reeds grow rank.
Through the witch-light haze
We tread our ways
In a weird, fantastic, wizard maze.

Ah, beldame Death! Her love is grim
And she leads to trails that are long and dim.
She is aloof from loves and hates 
She bears my taunts and she waits! She waits!
And a single instant off my guard,
A foot-a-slip on the pallid sward,
A saddle-girth loosed, a rended sail,
A hand that misses a wave-lashed rail,
A reef that lifts 'neath the plunging strakes,
A horse that falls or a sword that breaks
And the music stops and the whirl is o'er
And my feet are still for I dance no more.
But I'll not grudge the game, I trow,
As I feel her kiss on my fading brow.

For I hold her dance is the only joy
That thrills the years and fails to cloy.
Aye, I hold her measure above all treasure
And I'll only laugh as she bends to destroy.

LEFT FOOT,

RIGHT FOOT, WE WHIRL AND PRANCE

AND SPIN AWAY ON OUR WORLD LONG DANCE!



~ REH ~

[deuce]

The Last Day


Hinged in the brooding west a black sun hung,

And Titan shadows barred the dying world.

The blind black oceans groped; their tendrils curled

And writhed and fell in feathered spray, and clung,

Climbing the granite ladders, rung by rung,

Which held them from the tribes whose death-cries skirled.

Above, unholy fires red wings unfurled--

Gray ashes floated down from where they swung.



A demon crouched, chin propped on brutish fist,

Gripping a crystal ball between his knees;

His skull-mouth gaped, and icy shone his eye.

Down crashed the crystal globe- beneath the seas

The dark lands sank- alone in a fire-shot mist,

A painted sun hung in a starless sky.

~ REH ~

[themirrorthief]

Slumber ...Robert E Howard...one of his very best

A silver scroll against a marble sky,

A brooding idol hewn of crimson stone.
A dying queen upon an ebon throne,
An iron bird that rends the clouds on high.
A golden lute whose echoes never die-
A thousand dreams that men have never known
Spread mighty wings and fold me when alone
Upon my couch in haunted sleep I lie.

Then rending mists, the spurring whisper comes:
"Wake dreamer, wake, your tryst with Life to keep!"
Yet, waking, still a throb of phantom drums
Comes hauntingly across the mystic deep;
Their echo still, my thrill soul chord thrums-
Which is the waking, then, and which the sleep?

[themirrorthief]

u know you can take several of Howards poem, edited them together and then make yourself an audibook...playing the poems back in audio is a very enjoyable experience

[Deleted]

The Follower

I am the man who followed 

Never the one who led,

Many a chief I’ve followed,

In many a fray I’ve bled.

I was with Sargon of Akkad,

When he hurled his nomad hordes,

Against the host of Sumer, 

And they fell before his swords.

Armor bearer and captain,

Councilor to the king,

Never my praise do they utter,

When the Monarch’s name they sing.

Who speaks of Aristotle, 

Before Alexander the grand?

Shades of Le Chutsai Minghan, 

Councilor of Genghis Khan.

No fame to the man who followed,

Unknown on land and sea,

Yet the kings of all the ages

Have owed their thrones to me.

[themirrorthief]

darn good one Hun...lots of irony

[deuce]

An early classic from Howard...


The Ride of Falume


Published in Weird Tales, Vol. 10, No. 4 (October 1927).


Falume of Spain rode forth amain when twilight’s crimson fell
To drink a toast with Bahram’s ghost in the scarlet land of Hell.
His rowels clashed as swift he dashed along the flaming skies;
The sunset rade at his bridle braid and the moon was in his eyes.


The waves were green with an eery sheen over the hills of Thule
And the ripples beat to his horse’s feet like a serpent in a pool.
On vampire wings the shadow things wheeled round and round his head,
Till he came at last to a kingdom vast in the Land of the Restless Dead.


They thronged about in a grisly rout, they caught at his silver rein;
“Avaunt, foul host! Tell Bahram’s ghost Falume has come from Spain!”
Then flame-arrayed rose Bahram’s shade: “What would ye have, Falume?”
“Ho, Bahram who on earth I slew where Tagus’ waters boom,


Now though I shore your life of yore amid the burning West,
I ride to Hell to bid ye tell where I might ride to rest.
My beard is white and dim my sight and I would fain be gone.
Speak without guile: where lies the isle of mystic Avalon?”


“A league beyond the western wind, a mile beyond the moon,
Where the dim seas roar on an unknown shore and the drifting stars lie strewn:
The lotus buds there scent the woods where the quiet rivers gleam,
And king and knight in the mystic light the ages drowse and dream.”


With sudden bound Falume wheeled round, he fled through the flying wrack
Till he came to the land of Spain with the sunset at his back.
“No dreams for me, but living free, red wine and battle’s roar;
I breast the gales and I ride the trails until I ride no more.”


~ REH ~

[themirrorthief]

another great one

[deuce]

Invective


There burns in me no honeyed drop of love,

Nor soft compassion for my brother man:

I would indeed humanity possessed

A single throat a keen-edged knife could span.

~ REH~

[themirrorthief]

ouch

[deuce]

A Song Out of Midian


These will I give you, Astair: an armlet of frozen gold,

Gods cut from the living rock, and carven gems in an amber crock,

And a purple woven Tyrian smock, and wine from a pirate’s hold.

Kings shall kneel at your feet, Astair, emperors kiss your hand;



Captive girls for your joy shall dance, slim and straight as a striking lance,

Who tremble and bow at your mildest glance and kneel at your least command.

Galleys shall break the crimson seas seeking delights for you;

With silks and silvery fountain gleams I will weave a world that glows and seems



A shimmering mist of rainbow dreams, scarlet and white and blue.

Or is it glory you wish, Astair, the crash and the battle-flame?

The winds shall break on the warship’s sail and Death ride free at my horse’s tail,

Till all the tribes of the earth shall wail at the terror of your name.



I will break the thrones of the world, Astair, and fling them at your feet;

Flame and banners and doom shall fly, and my iron chariots rend the sky,

Whirlwind on whirlwind heaping high, death and a deadly sleet.

Why are you sad and still, Astair, counting my words as naught?



From slave to queen I have raised you high, and yet you stare with a weary eye,

And never the laugh has followed the sigh, since you from your land were brought.

Do you long for the lowing herds, Astair? For the desert’s dawning white?

For the hawk-eyed tribesman’s coarse hard fare, and the brown firm limbs that are hard and bare,



And the eagle’s rocks and the lion’s lair, and the tents of the Israelite?

I have never chained your limbs, Astair; free as the winds that whirl

Go if you wish. The doors are wide, since less to you is an empire’s pride

Than the open lands where the tribesmen ride, wooing the desert girl.


~ REH ~