POETRY BY DOUG MCGARVEY, JR.

THE UNIVERSE THAT LOVECRAFT BUILT

I've fallen down the rabbit-hole, and through the looking-glass,
And fought the Jabberwock beside the grinning Cheshire Cat.
I flew to Oz with Dorothy and found it nice, although
The flying monkeys drove me mad -- My God! they chattered so!
In Middle-Earth, in Hobbiton, I called at Frodo's door,
Then travelled on to Rivendell to study ancient lore.
But all these places I have been can hold no candle to
The journey to the distant stars I now relate to you.

I saw the splendour of the place whence first Cthulhu came,
Great one, whom only Sorcerors and Mystics know by name.
Yet even scholars such as chase this morbidest of myths
Cannot know half of what I've learned of His great monoliths.
I've seen the sea whereunder lies His newest of abodes:
R'lyeh, the sunken city; and I've visited St. Toad's.

On Yuggoth were the Outer Ones, explorers from the void,
Inventors of the singular devices I employed.
They told of Nyarlathotep, then the bolder ones exclaimed,
"Ia! Shub-Niggurath!" and called the daemon by its name.

On Earth, as well, I've known the grim empires beneath the Crust,
And seen the spawn of Yog-Sothoth with aid of Ghazi's dust.
I've held the Key of Dreams in these unworthiest of hands,
And seen the lake of Sarnath splashing o'er the curséd sands.

So now I laugh at those who're bound to this small mortal sphere --
For the universe that Lovecraft built, to me, is much more dear.

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Created: May 3, 2003; Updated: August 9, 2004