A time-black tower against dim banks of cloud;
Around its base the pathless pressing wood.
Shadow and silence, moss and mould, pressing wood
Grey, age fell'd slabs that once as cromlechs stood,
No fall of foot, no song of bird awakes
The lethal aisles of sempiternal night
Tho' oft with stir of wings the dense air shakes
As in the towre there glows a pallid light.
For here, apart, dwells one whose hands have wrought
Strange eidola that chill the world with fear;
Whose graven runes in tones of dread have taught
What things beyond the star-gulfs lurk and leer.
Dark Lord of Averiogne — whose windows stare
On pits of dream no other gaze could bear!