RESURRECTS THE DEAD

“THE FREEZINE
RESURRECTS
THE DEAD”


BERENICE--A TALE.
by Edgar A. Poe
©in the public domain
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OUT OF THE ROSE
by William Butler Yeats
©in the public domain
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HAITA THE SHEPHERD
by Ambrose Bierce
©in the public domain
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NYARLATHOTEP
by H.P. Lovecraft
©in the public domain
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ELIMINATION OF A PICTURE & ITS SUBJECT--CALLED THE FELLER'S MASTER STROKE
by Richard Dadd
© in the public domain
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NYARLATHOTEP

by H. P. Lovecraft

Nyarlathotep...the crawling chaos...I am the last...I will tell the audient void...

I do not recall distinctly when it began, but it was months ago. The general tension was horrible. To a season of political and social upheaval was added a strange and brooding apprehension of hideous physical danger; a danger widespread and all-embracing, such a danger as may be imagined only in the most terrible phantasms of the night. I recall that the people went about with pale and worried faces, and whispered warnings and prophecies which no one dared consciously repeat or acknowledge to himself that he had heard. A sense of monstrous guilt was upon the land, and out of the abysses between the stars swept chill currents that made men shiver in dark and lonely places. There was a demoniac alteration in the sequence of the seasons–the autumn heat lingered fearsomely, and everyone felt that the world and perhaps the universe had passed from the control of known gods or forces to that of gods or forces which were unknown.

And it was then that Nyarlathotep came out of Egypt. Who he was, none could tell, but he was of the old native blood and looked like a Pharaoh. The fellahin knelt when they saw him, yet could not say why. He said he had risen up out of the blackness of twenty-seven centuries, and that he had heard messages from places not on this planet. Into the lands of civilisation came Nyarlathotep, swarthy, slender, and sinister, always buying strange instruments of glass and metal and combining them into instruments yet stranger. He spoke much of the sciences–of electricity and psychology and gave exhibitions of power which sent his spectators away speechless, yet which swelled his fame to exceeding magnitude. Men advised one another to see Nyarlathotep, and shuddered. And where Nyarlathotep went, rest vanished, for the small hours were rent with the screams of nightmare. Never before had the screams of nightmare been such a public problem; now the wise men almost wished they could forbid sleep in the small hours, that the shrieks of cities might less horribly disturb the pale, pitying moon as it glimmered on green waters gliding under bridges, and old steeples crumbling against a sickly sky.

I remember when Nyarlathotep came to my city–the great, the old, the terrible city of unnumbered crimes. My friend had told me of him, and of the impelling fascination and allurement of his revelations, and I burned with eagerness to explore his uttermost mysteries. My friend said they were horrible and impressive beyond my most fevered imaginings; and what was thrown on a screen in the darkened room prophesied things none but Nyarlathotep dared prophesy, and in the sputter of his sparks there was taken from men that which had never been taken before yet which shewed only in the eyes. And I heard it hinted abroad that those who knew Nyarlathotep looked on sights which others saw not.

It was in the hot autumn that I went through the night with the restless crowds to see Nyarlathotep; through the stifling night and up the endless stairs into the choking room. And shadowed on a screen, I saw hooded forms amidst ruins, and yellow evil faces peering from behind fallen monuments. And I saw the world battling against blackness; against the waves of destruction from ultimate space; whirling, churning, struggling around the dimming, cooling sun. Then the sparks played amazingly around the heads of the spectators, and hair stood up on end whilst shadows more grotesque than I can tell came out and squatted on the heads. And when I, who was colder and more scientific than the rest, mumbled a trembling protest about “imposture” and “static electricity”, Nyarlathotep drove us all out, down the dizzy stairs into the damp, hot, deserted midnight streets. I screamed aloud that I was not afraid; that I never could be afraid; and others screamed with me for solace. We swore to one another that the city was exactly the same, and still alive; and when the electric lights began to fade we cursed the company over and over again, and laughed at the queer faces we made.

I believe we felt something coming down from the greenish moon, for when we began to depend on its light we drifted into curious involuntary marching formations and seemed to know our destinations though we dared not think of them. Once we looked at the pavement and found the blocks loose and displaced by grass, with scarce a line of rusted metal to shew where the tramways had run. And again we saw a tram-car, lone, windowless, dilapidated, and almost on its side. When we gazed around the horizon, we could not find the third tower by the river, and noticed that the silhouette of the second tower was ragged at the top. Then we split up into narrow columns, each of which seemed drawn in a different direction. One disappeared in a narrow alley to the left, leaving only the echo of a shocking moan. Another filed down a weed-choked subway entrance, howling with a laughter that was mad. My own column was sucked toward the open country, and presently I felt a chill which was not of the hot autumn; for as we stalked out on the dark moor, we beheld around us the hellish moon-glitter of evil snows. Trackless, inexplicable snows, swept asunder in one direction only, where lay a gulf all the blacker for its glittering walls. The column seemed very thin indeed as it plodded dreamily into the gulf. I lingered behind, for the black rift in the green-litten snow was frightful, and I thought I had heard the reverberations of a disquieting wail as my companions vanished; but my power to linger was slight. As if beckoned by those who had gone before, I half-floated between the titanic snowdrifts, quivering and afraid, into the sightless vortex of the unimaginable.

Screamingly sentient, dumbly delirious, only the gods that were can tell. A sickened, sensitive shadow writhing in hands that are not hands, and whirled blindly past ghastly midnights of rotting creation, corpses of dead worlds with sores that were cities, charnel winds that brush the pallid stars and make them flicker low. Beyond the worlds vague ghosts of monstrous things; half-seen columns of unsanctifled temples that rest on nameless rocks beneath space and reach up to dizzy vacua above the spheres of light and darkness. And through this revolting graveyard of the universe the muffled, maddening beating of drums, and thin, monotonous whine of blasphemous flutes from inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond Time; the detestable pounding and piping whereunto dance slowly, awkwardly, and absurdly the gigantic, tenebrous ultimate gods–the blind, voiceless, mindless gargoyles whose soul is Nyarlathotep.

XII: ELIMINATION OF A PICTURE & ITS SUBJECT--CALLED THE FELLER'S MASTER STROKE

byRichard Dadd






Sounds the long notes ’long the long tube that wind
And in the fairy hollows echoes find.
To assist this gaudy long legged trumpeter
A tatteredemalion & a junketer
Holiday folk that tends upon,
Like a Postilion if you con
Each blows his brazen tube no doubt in tune
With Dragon Fly that rests his leg abune
The jutting stone on which they sit
Expecting company that soon will flit
Slanting along the Lunar ray
Like boys & girls come out to play –
Alow behind these last-named two
An elfin takes a peeping view –
Not at the nut but the spectator
Happen to mark if arbitrator
He in this remarkable fudge
Or humbug gives the fatal nudge.
Peeper is wildest of the crew
Cares nought for them or I or you.
You from his cap with me perchance agree
Of the Chinese small Foot Societee,
He’s a small member.
But if Confucius sent him
Now I can’t remember.


Turn to the Patriarch & behold
Long pendents from his crown are rolled,
In winding figures circle round
The grass and such upon the mound,
They represent vagary wild
And mental aberration styled.
Now unto nature clinging close
Now wildly out away they toss,
Like a cyclone uncontroll’d
Sweeping around with chance-born fold
Unto the picture brings a grace
Which else was wanting to its face
But tied at length unto a stem
Shews or should do finitam rem –
The size the nuts do here display
Forgive nor make me forfeit pay
Having the benefit of doubt
Of what the fairies grow without
The reach of human ken or will
And needs not now that I instil
Into your mind.
What here I’ve said from fancy’s wing
A sense supporting of my need
You may deny – say – no such thing
’Tis all wrong every bit indeed.
Well! to your judgment I must bow
Freely it’s exercise allow
You perhaps to such are more inured.
Your notions may be more endured
But whether it be or be not so
You can afford to let this go
For nought as nothing it explains
And nothing from nothing nothing gains.

~ the end ~

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XI: ELIMINATION OF A PICTURE & ITS SUBJECT--CALLED THE FELLER'S MASTER STROKE

byRichard Dadd






Knows when he does he’ll be Commander
The chief one or a Salamander.
A real fire eater like the Sun
By his own bravery surely won.
The sailor keeps a pleasure yacht
Has nought to do but live on what
The smiling elements that never frown
Freely disclose as up and down
For pleasure merely roam about
The fleets of vessels of which he’ll take
Entire command for the nation’s sake,
Nor cares he where to move or swim.
’Till death commands to dowse the glim.
Some other oceans then he’ll try,
Rolling eternal in the sky –
The tinker next with barrow trig
Knows every wandering gypsy rig
Where does he lodge? ’tis hard to say
Whether a house or stack of hay
Serves the poor outcast for his rest
He’s butt howe’er for many a jest
Lives in a world of nether pose
Mysterious obscure, your senses lose
Or cast aside as nothing worth
Nor length it has nor breadth or girth
Just now he marks the filbert big
Stript of its natural russet wig
How would he here his skill to prove?


He’d grind it p’raps? Not so by Jove
Clumsily skilful though he be
He knows too much for that d’ye see
Around the fairy villages he’ll stray
Knives scissors to grind might bawl each day.
Knows well the tailor reg’lar grinds his shears.
Ah! That’s a tailor brave that knows no fears.
Nine fairy tailors would not make a man
Tho’ they might queer him, you know well they can.
But this one seems disposed to queer,
The plough-boy that is standing to him near
Shews him a coat neat made and very strong
’T’would last the lad his fairy life time long.
But while he doubts the same to buy,
The Thief his craft on him doth try.
Loosens his handkerchief so gay.
Too artful he to snatch away.
The doctor in his thoughts reserved.
The trick below hath not observed
But with his sounding pestle beats,
The drugs that he to fairy metes.
His mortar would not hold the nut.
But holds enough for fairy gut.
A nostrum or a panacea
At any price we’ll say not dear.
Next to the Soldier on his right,
a Dragon Fly exerts his skill & might

Concludes with Part XII

X: ELIMINATION OF A PICTURE & ITS SUBJECT--CALLED THE FELLER'S MASTER STROKE

byRichard Dadd






I know not if at theatres or fairs.
It needs must be so –
Fairies ’tis said shun all display
And most affect the pale moon’s ray
Sol’s potent ray soon drives them off
He’d instant find whereat to spurn and scoff –
Just so it was with folk in olden time,
Whose practices were held to be a crime.
They fled the powers that held despotic sway –
Poor little fairies! why not also they?
Fancy this pair aught else ’t’will do,
But male and female they are plain to view
Next to the Queen you here behind may count,
Some strapping fairy footmen mount
And garde chemin no doubt they well do serve.
Tiny in size but lusty in the nerve,
As every footman should be –
Above in attitude of fondest love
King Oberon & his Queen approve
The sport else why should they repair
To this sequestered spot the same to share
Merely perhaps to note the way things went.
And how many chops were useless made anent.
Pulling of straws out from a stack of wheat.
Is for a pastime not more meet.


And such the Old Lady in the Scarlet Cloak,
Might non-be fancying true – no joke.
Is it true for me or even you –
True if you care not – this is true.
Her nose and chin will never crack
The monster nuts & many a whack
From club or shining axe will want
Ere the chance fatal lights upon’t
Above the harridan some whose names
Serve schoolboys turn when at their games
They of the future calling prophecy
With boisterous laugh and ecstasy
Of childish mirth, nor want they
Perhaps a forced imposed belief.
In soldier and sailor, tinker or tailor
Ploughboy, apothecary, thief.
Counting their buttons down the vest.
A name to each – the last doth rest
The faded rade – soon from the thoughts ’tis laid
Aside and fairy prophecy forgot.
Here let me say my let of this same lot –
The ragged soldier sure is mad.
Made so by wounds, debauch and glad
But hard earned victory
Being fay, I’ve not the history.
I made it so but not from spite,
Else he’d find reason to requite
But ragamuffins to enlist.
He’s a brave spirit to assist.

Continues with Part XI