Babel (Howard)

Now in the gloom the pulsing drums repeat, And all the night is filled with evil sound; I hear the throbbing on inhuman feet On marble stairs that silence locks around.

I see black temples loom against the night, With tentacles like serpents writhed afar, And waving in a dusky dragon light Great moths whose wings unholy tapers char. Red memory on memory, tier on tier, Builds up a tower, time and space to span; Through world on world I rise, and sphere on sphere, To star-shot gulfs of lunacy and fear&mdash; Black screaming ages never dreamed by man.

Was this your plan, foul spawn of cosmic mire, To freeze my soul to stone and icy fire, To carve me in the moon that all mankind May know its race is futile, weak and blind&mdash; A horror-blasted statue in the sky, That does not live and nevermore can die?