Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922Lovecraft, H. P. (Howard Phillips)
History
Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922
Lovecraft, H. P. (Howard Phillips)
Essays; Literature -- History and criticism; Periodicals
"Moon over the tropics,
A white-curved bud
Opening its petals slowly in the warmth of heaven....
The air is full of odours
And languorous warm sounds....
A flute drones its insect music to the night
Below the curving moon-petal of the heavens.
"Moon over China,
Weary moon on the river of the sky,
The stir of light in the willows is like the flashing of a thousand
silver minnows
Through dark shoals;
The tiles on graves and rotting temples flash like ripples,
The sky is flecked with clouds like the scales of a dragon."
Amid the mists of dream the reader cried to the rhythmical stars of her
delight at the coming of a new age of song, a rebirth of Pan. Half
closing her eyes, she repeated words whose melody lay hid like crystals
at the bottom of a stream before the dawn; hidden but to gleam
effulgently at the birth of day.
"Moon over Japan,
White butterfly moon!
"Moon over the tropics,
A white-curved bud
Opening its petals slowly in the warmth of heaven.
The air is full of odours
And languorous warm sounds ... languorous warm sounds.
"Moon over China,
Weary moon on the river of the sky ... weary moon!"
* * *
Out of the mists gleamed godlike the figure of a youth in winged helmet
and sandals, caduceus-bearing, and of a beauty like to nothing on earth.
Before the face of the sleeper he thrice waved the rod which Apollo had
given him in trade for the nine-corded shell of melody, and upon her
brow he placed a wreath of myrtle and roses. Then, adoring, Hermes
spoke:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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