starry vision

''once i watch’d with restless yearning an alluring, aureate star; ... mystic waves of beauty blended with the gorgeous golden rays; ... there (thought i) lies scenes of pleasure, where the free and blessed dwell, ... there (i told myself) were shining worlds of happiness unknown, ... thus i mus’d, when o’er the vision crept a red delirious change; ... crimson burn’d the star of sadness as behind the beams i peer’d; ... now i know the fiendish fable that the golden glitter bore; now i shun the spangled sable that i watch’d and lov’d before; but the horror, set and stable, haunts my soul for evermore.''

complete poem.

h.p.lovecraft, astrophobos.