Prelude

PRELUDE

A Poet, fleeing o’er the Northern heath

Despaired of his way, pursued by evil men,

So chanced upon a rotting coracle

And desperate, put trust in sodden planks

And paddled toward a long-abandoned shore

Which, moated by the angry river Cheyth,

Had not for ages felt the tread of man.

For, since it greedy drank the blood of guests

It had remained a city of the dead

And for this cause men say that in its streets

By moonlight glitter ivory paving stones.

No stones, but dead men’s bones lie there exposed

Flashing in silvery moonlight their glittering jaws,

Their empty sockets gazing on the world.

So Kyronkarr, where the Poet first set foot

Upon its shore accursed. So wandered he

For many heartbeats, gazing on its ruin,

And thought him of the glory it had known.

He looked upon its golden minarets

And marveled at the splendor of its gates—

Such splendor it had born in former times,

But majesty long‐faded turns to rot

And dead men take no joy in brass or gold.

So splendid cities all which empire hold

Are but the holds of corpses ere the end.

The Poet wandered through the city wide

And wand’ring, grieved the city’s wrathful muse,

Who slumbered there but fitfully in brood

On all her ancient wrongs. She howled as wind:

“Who walks, so loud, across my bone‐paved streets?

Unholy feet! That tread beneath their soles

My children’s bones. What madness drove you here?

Be ware you answer well, though guest you be,

For fear I not to add you to my tale.”

The Poet spake: “Unhappy fate ‘twas drew

Me all unbidden to your dreadful shore.

Nor come I willingly, but need requires.

For fortune ill which hounds my life from birth

Hath giv’n me to the hands of wicked men

Who mean, ere rising of the ram of Dawn,

To cast my feeble body in the Cheyth—

Thence to run, all‐bloated, to the Sea.

But had I known what death awaits me here

I would have rather chosen hand of man

Than be devoured by a spectre’s wrath

And pave these grizzly streets with whit’ning bones.”

Then asked the city’s spirit: “For what crimes?

What reason have these men to work your ruin?”

“Tis only poet’s sins, if sins they be.”

“But poets,” said she, “have done great wrong to me.

For by their songs my shame is noised afar

Who should with kindly mem’ry speak of me

Who once outstripped the cities of the earth

In grandeur—and the long reach of my trade

Grasped at starless seas and shadowed isle,

When giants murmured the glory of my name.

But mock’ry all their songs, for so I hear

When some foul western wind or southern gale

Brings past my walls some whisper of their words

Which make a jest of wrongs, and make my name

A byword to the peoples of the earth.

No love for poets in my breast! So die,

And with the service of your gleaming bones

Atone the many wrongs your kind have done.”

So saying she, the wind arose in wrath

To smite the Poet down. He shrank against

The grizzly street, and raised a suppliant hand.

“Forebear, O Kyronkarr the Great, and stay

Your wrathful hand from this poor Poet’s head.

For payment of my life I would give all—

But what have I to offer save a song?

But if my feeble tongue can put in words

Some pleasant tale to while the hours away—

Of warriors brave or maidens fair at court—

Then when the shining ram of dawn aloft

Comes bounding, towing fiery cart on high,

I will away, and nevermore will come

Again to seek your troubled shore. So lie

In peace, while ages pass, and I will tell

With faithful tongue the glories of Kyronkarr.”

And she: “Long indeed since ere I heard

A song to cheer these crumbling, lichened walls.

But do not prate to me of courtly loves.

Such trifles do not please these ancient ears.

But tell me now of elder days long‐passed:

The coming of the Star‐folk, and their ruin,

And how they flew before it to this Sea,

And came through wand’ring, death, and many tears,

To dwell in peace at last beside its shore.

But warning one I give you. Hearken well:

Speak not the nameless sin which stained my streets

And made Great Kyronkarr, the peerless town,

A roosting place for gulls and albatross.

Speak it not! Or else thy grinning skull

Adorns my empty shrines with lidless eyes--

Your bones become a pavement for my feet.”

So the Poet sang with trembling voice

While all around the jaws of dead men grinned

And the North wind howled through streets of dead men’s bones.