Howard Phillips Lovecraft

Homecoming

Weird Tales (Canadian, 2nd series) (January 1946)
Originally published in The Fantasy Fan, January 1935. Part of the “Fungi from Yuggoth” cycle.

THE Daemon said that he would take me home
To the pale, shadowy land I half-recalled
As a high place of stair and terrace, walled
With marble balustrades that sky-winds comb,
While miles below a maze of dome on dome
And tower on tower beside a sea lies sprawled,
Once more, he told me. I would stand enthralled
On those old heights, and hear the far-off foam.

All this he promised, and through sunset’s gate
He swept me, past the lapping lakes of flame.
And red-gold thrones of gods without a name
Who shriek in fear at some impending fate.
Then a black gulf with sea-sounds in the night:
“Here was your home,” he mocked, “when you had sight!”

—H. P. Lovecraft