Weird poems and creepy verse selected from Weird Tales Magazine.
Ring Eclipse by Mary Elizabeth Counselman
Now I have touched the silver moon at last!
One little part of her was given me
When, for a magic interval, she cast
Her shadow on the dull earth’s tapestry
Briefly in silhouette against the sun
She made a path of night across the day
Then as a cold queen’s garment might have done
That velvet train of darkness swept away
But now I smile to see her in the sky
Aloof, illusive as a faery gem
Knowing I touched her shadow passing by
And left my fingerprints upon the hem.
(From Weird Tales January 1941)
Haunted Hour by Leah Bodine Drake
The sky is colored like a peacock’s breast;
There lingers yet one thin, chill line of gold
Down where the woods their somber branches hold
In silhouette against the fading west.
Dark leaves, dark earth, slow-breathing and at rest,
Whence frail scents rise of dew-wet grass and mold.
A single star gleams diamond-clear and cold,
Like one sharp note from elfin viol wrest.
This is the haunted hour,—such woods surround
Grey Merlin in his oak, adrouse with dwale;
In such a gloaming once the lorn knight found
The faery woman in the river-vale;
And underneath this star long, long ago
The Dark Tower heard a lonely slug-horn blow!
(From Weird Tales November 1941)
The Dreamer in the Desert by Francis Flagg
Near Time’s white dawn, the cities stood
In fabled grandeur by a flood
That rolled where now the desert lies
Burning beneath its molten skies.
Strange galleons on inland seas
Bore golden freights for monarchies
Ruling from gorgeous peacock thrones
Long mingled with the desert stones.
Green grew the grass and smiled the lake
Where now the lizard and the snake
Lie somnolent, the orchards fair
Are gone the way of dust and air.
Only a wraith of all its glory
The desert mutely tells the story
For dreaming men to muse upon
From crystal dawn to crystal dawn.
(From Weird Tales May 1942)
Changeling by Leah Bodine Drake
I am out on the wind
In the wild, black night;
On the wings of the owl
I take my flight,
On the ghostly wings of the great white owl;
And whether the night be fair or foul,
Or the moon be up or the thunder growl,
Happy I be, Happy I be
When the changeling blood runs green in me!
When meek folk sleep
In their dull, soft beds,
I creep over roots
That the weasel treads,
Where the squat green lamps of the toadstools glow –
And only the fox knows the ways I go,
And nobody knows the things I know ….
Wise I be, Wise I be
When the changeling blood runs green in me!
O Mother, slumber
And do not wake! …
Thin voices called
From the rain-wet brake,
And the child you cradled against your breast
Is out in the night on the black wind’s crest,
For only the wild can give me rest ….
Sad I be, Sad I be
When the changeling blood runs green in me.
(From Weird Tales May 1942)
Strange Music by Dorothy Quick
I once heard elfin music
When the moon was low;
And I saw elfin shadows
Dancing to and fro.
Since then no other music
Can quicken my heart’s beat
And never comes a rhythm
That tempts my dancing feet.
I once heard elfin music
When the moon was low
So now I hear that music
Wherever I may go.
(From Weird Tales July 1943)
On a Weird Planet by Stanton A. Coblentz
They said Inferno was the planet’s name
A waste of sprouting crimson barred with black
Where towers and palisades were sucked by flame
And fields erupted in the red attack.
There in the rocket-vomiting, sooty gloom
Bewildered thousands, frail as ants upturned
Staggered and ran and staggered, pitched to doom
Or prayed and muttered while their homesteads burned.
And roar of bombs and mortars jarred the ears
And drone of flying dragons, screams of pain
While fiery whirlwinds tore at all frontiers
And sane men grappled with the clawed insane
Inferno was the planet’s name, they said
Then weird this tale, that under warm blue skies
Once children laughed and lovers merrily wed
And poets, moonstruck, sang of paradise.
Moon-Marked by S. Omar Barker
Consider Adam, whose widening eyes
Saw the first white full moon rise
Beyond some shadow fronded crest
Within the garden of the blessed
New then the earth and new the moon
And newer still the rigadoon
Of quickened pulse within the blood
Of First Man in a moonlit wood
Something beyond all analyzing
Rose in that first full moon’s rising
A something neither good nor bad
A pulse untamed and a little mad
Whether the jungle tom-toms beat
Or boogie-woogie assails the street
Or a cowboy sings on a lonely trail
Moon-marked is the human male
Consider Adam who could not rest
In Eden’s garden of the blessed
Consider Adam, not judge him ill
Witched by a white moon over a hill
(From Weird Tales January 1948)
The House by H.P. Lovecraft
Tis a grove-circled dwelling
Set close to a hill,
Where the branches are telling
Strange legends of ill;
Over timbers so old
That they breathe of the dead,
Crawl the vines, green and cold,
By strange nourishment fed;
And no man knows the juices they suck from the depths of their dank slimy bed.
In the gardens are growing
Tall blossoms and fair,
Each pallid bloom throwing
Perfume on the air;
But the afternoon sun
With its shining red rays
Makes the picture loom dun
On the curious gaze,
And above the sween scent of the the blossoms rise odours of numberless days.
The rank grasses are waving
On terrace and lawn,
Dim memories sav’ring
Of things that have gone;
The stones of the walks
Are encrusted and wet,
And a strange spirit stalks
When the red sun has set,
And the soul of the watcher is fill’d with faint pictures he fain would forget.
It was in the hot Junetime
I stood by that scene,
When the gold rays of noontime
Beat bright on the green.
But I shiver’d with cold,
Groping feebly for light,
As a picture unroll’d—
And my age-spanning sight
Saw the time I had been there before flash like fulgury out of the night.
(From Weird Tales March 1948)
Demon Lover by Harriet A. Bradfield
Guard your bride, and watch her well
Lest a creature, freed from hell,
Gaze upon her virgin face,
Seek her out with gruesome grace;
Cast a spell upon her heart,
Then with fiendish joy depart.
If she’s felt the demon spell,
She must follow, though to hell;
Hear you call her, but too late.
Leaving you to tortured wait.
Hawk-like watch your lovely-bride
Till’ she sleeps safe at your side!
(From Weird Tales May 1948)
The Eldritch One by Pauline Booker
I’ve lived for long, uncounted eons,
Since Time and I were young;
I dwell in hidden crypts and eyries,
And speak with witch’s tongue.
When blood drips from the horned moon.
And wild winds lash the sea,
And men and ships die in the night,
I laugh with demon-glee.
For well I know my evil curse—
That I shall never die;
My soul will dwell in snakes and toads,
And bats that blindly fly.
I walk my dark, forbidden ways,
And none of human race
Can ever flee my awful spell,
Who look upon my face.
And when the sun at last grows cold
In its vain, ageless quest,
I’ll seek once more the alien land
Where I was born unblest.
(From Weird Tales May 1948)
The River by Dorothy Quick
Down by the river early, early,
Under the lowering unclear light.
The rising sun is surly, surly
And nothing’s distinct or over-bright.
It’s then the river dances, dances
With water the moon has driven mad
And willow trees send glances, glances
That are unearthly, cold and sad.
Down by the river slowly, slowly
The sun will rise, the dancing cease,
The willow trees bend lowly, lowly
As the river once again knows peace.
(From Weird Tales September 1948)
To the Chimera by Clark Ashton Smith
Unknown chimera, take us, for we tire
Amid the known monotony of things !
Descend, and bearing sunward with bright wings
Our mounful weariness and sad desire,
Pause not to prove the opal shores untrod,
Below thee fading, and the fields of rose ;
Till on thy horns of planished silver flows
The sanguine light of Edens lost to God.
There, for the weary sense insatiate,
Primeval sleep from towering scarlet blooms
Would fall in slow and infinite perfumes;
Or we could leave thy crystal wings elate—
Riding the pagan plain with knees that press
The golden flanks of some great centauress.
(From Weird Tales September 1948)
Ghostlings by Dorothy Quick
Out of the silence of the night
Come icy fingers tipped with snow,
And a strange thin piping
That no birds know.
And there are misty figures
Ringing all the world apart;
Casting unbearable terror
Around the heart.
Gaping, senseless, horrid faces
Coming from another world;
These are the nameless ghostlings.
The dark unfurled.
These are the nameless ghostlings.
Creeping slowly as the mist.
To weave the spells of horror
No mortal can resist.
(From Weird Tales November 1948)
The Heads on Easter Island by Leah Bodine Drake
We know that human hands carved these lean faces
And set them on the dark volcanic hill
Not friends or titans! Only brown-limbed races
Mysterious, unknown, but mortal still
Whoever made these gods once gave them homage
Brought yams and sweet green cane at dusk or dawn
Danced to the shaking drums in sea-birds plumage
And cried their names and loved them and were gone
Yet to what men have worshipped always clings
A sense of life unearthly, and there lies
A spell of power and of timeless things
In these sardonic lips and hooded eyes
And awe takes hold of any traveler there
Who feels these stones are sleeping, but aware!
(From Weird Tales January 1949)
A Curse by Page Cooper
When the last black vampire hour of night
Sucks at the throat of the dying moon
Or the brask sun scorches with avid light
The tremulous fevered flesh of noon
Through ice or blizzard or bitter hiss
Of rain, you’ll seek for the love you slew
Parched with lust for a phantom kiss
Faint for the joy you never knew
(From Weird Tales January 1949)
Forest God by Dorothy Quick
Keep out of the forest
Harken to this advice
For those who Pan caresses
Never see him twice
Those who know his touches
And those who feel his kiss
Know that there is nothing
To ever equal this
Those who hear Pan’s music
And look into his eyes
Will always hear his laughter
Will always be too wise
Still it’s worth the risking
Loneliness and pain
To have the hope to cherish
Pan might come again
(From Weird Tales November 1949)
Demon Lure by Harriet A Bradfield
Bind your eyes lest you should
Step into that light
Or see the horrid ritual
Of evil acolyte
Stop your ears against this
Revelry malign
Which scrapes against your eardrums
And ices down your spine
Such music’s from a fiddle
No human ever strung
Such words could not be uttered
Save by some demon’s tongue
If you should ever hope to
See the sun once more
Run with fevered frenzy
From that seducing door
(From Weird Tales November 1949)
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