H.P. Lovecraft (August 20, 1890—March 15, 1937)
August 20, 2025
In remembering Lovecraft on his birth date, I found this poem that is brimming with a ghostly atmosphere of the past. I love the Old English flavors he uses—oft, flow’rs, o’er. There is a gloomy beauty in this garden, reminding me of how intensely dark Gothic tales can bloom. Don’t miss it.
The Garden
There’s an ancient, ancient garden that I see sometimes in dreams,
Where the very Maytime sunlight plays and glows with spectral gleams;
Where the gaudy-tinted blossoms seem to wither into grey,
And the crumbling walls and pillars waken thoughts of yesterday.
There are vines in nooks and crannies, and there’s moss about the pool,
And the tangled weedy thicket chokes the arbour dark and cool:
In the silent sunken pathways springs a herbage sparse and spare,
Where the musty scent of dead things dulls the fragrance of the air.
There is not a living creature in the lonely space arouna,
And the hedge-encompass’d quiet never echoes to a sound.
As I walk, and wait, and listen, I will often seek to find
When it was I knew that garden in an age long left behind;
I will oft conjure a vision of a day that is no more,
As I gaze upon the grey, grey scenes I feel I knew before.
Then a sadness settles o’er me, and a tremor seems to start—
For I know the flow’rs are shrivell’d hopes—the garden is my heart.
I have several Lovecraft short stories previously posted here at Reading Fiction Blog in the Index. If you’d like to indulge in this master of Gothic horror, just click the links below for your convenience.
Lovecraft, H.P. The Outsider, February 14, 2022
Lovecraft, H.P. Dreams in the Witch House, November 30 2012
Lovecraft, H.P. The Strange High House in the Mist, June 25, 2013
Lovecraft, H.P. The Cats of Ulthar, August 20, 2013
Lovecraft, H.P. Pickman’s Model, August 19, 2014
Lovecraft, H.P. The Music of Erich Zann, January 7, 2014
Lovecraft, H.P. The Festival, December 2, 2014
Lovecraft, H.P. In the Walls of Eryx, July 14, 2015
Lovecraft, H.P. The Tree, November 17, 2015
Lovecraft, H.P. Haunter of the Dark, October 24, 2017
Lovecraft, H.P. What the Moon Brings, April 10, 2018
Lovecraft, H.P. The Moon-Bog, November 18, 2024
Lovecraft is said to have earned more acclaim after his death than during his lifetime. “The Call of Cthulhu” came out in 1928 in Weird Tales. He wrote over sixty short stories and novellas and twenty stories in his Cthulhu Mythos. He is revered by many today to be the finest Gothic and literary supernaturalist.
If you’d like to read more about the “Gothic Lovecraft” visit this link below by Kathleen Hudson.
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