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Polaris { 1918}



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H. P. Lovecraft

Polaris

complete works



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Polaris { 1918}

> PUBLISHER <Z Edições

Rua Frei Caneca, 485 - São Paulo - SPCEP 01307-001 - Brazil

> INTERIOR AND COVER DESIGN <Zander Catta Preta

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> ISBN-13: 978-1494387686 <> ISBN-10: 1494387686 <

> November, 2013 <



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H. P. Lovecraft

P. Lovecra Biography

(from the Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecrat)

Howard Phillips “H. P.” Lovecrat (August20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American author who

achieved posthumous fame through his inluential works of horror ction. Virtually unknown and onlypublished in ‘pulp’ magazines before he died in poverty,he is now widely seen as one of the most signicant20th century authors in his genre. Lovecrat was bornin Providence, Rhode Island, where he spent most ofhis life. His father was conned to a mental institution

when Lovecrat was 3 years old. His grandfather, a wealthy businessman, enjoyed storytelling and was anearly inluence. Intellectually precocious but sensitive,Lovecrat had begun composing rudimentary horrortales and had begun to be overwhelmed by feelings ofanxiety by the age of 8. He encountered problems with

peers in school, and was kept at home by his highly-strung and overbearing mother for illnesses that mayhave been psychosomatic. In high school Lovecrat



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Polaris { 1918}

found his contemporaries were accepting and he formed

friendships. He also involved neighborhood children inelaborate make-believe projects, only regretfully ceasingthe activity at 17 years old. Despite leaving school in1908 without graduating — he found mathematicsparticularly dicult — Lovecrat’s knowledge ofsubjects that interested him was formidable.

Although he seems to have had somesocial life, attending meetings of a club for local youngmen, Lovecrat in early adulthood was established ina reclusive ‘nightbird’ lifestyle without occupation orpursuit of romantic adventures. In 1913 his conductof a long running controversy in the letters page of astory magazine led to him being invited to participate

in an amateur journalism association. Encouraged, hestarted circulating his stories, he was 31 at the time of hisrst publication in a professional magazine. Lovecratcontracted a marriage to an older woman he had metat an association conference. By thirty-four years oldhe was a regular contributor to newly founded, but lossmaking, Weird Tales magazine, he turned down anofer of the editorship. The only regular jobs he ever held

were in New York during his short-lived marriage, whenhe unsuccessfully attempted to earn a living with lowlevel clerical work.

Lovecrat returned to Providence in 1926,

and over the next 9 months he produced some of hismost celebrated tales including The Call of Cthulhu,canonical to the Cthulhu Mythos. Never able to support



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H. P. Lovecraft

himself from earnings as author and editor, commercial

success increasingly eluded him in this latter period,partly because he lacked the condence and drive topromote himself. Lovecrat subsisted in progressivelystraightened circumstances in his last years, aninheritance was completely spent by the time he passedaway at the age of 46.1

The reputation of Lovecrat has beennegatively afected by evidence in his correspondenceof a racial nativism that jars with modern sensibilities.Paradoxically, his wife and closest friend were Jewish,and a major theme of Lovecrat’s stories was theinsignicance of all humankind. He used the term“cosmic horror” for the idea that life is incomprehensible

to human minds and that the universe is fundamentallyinimical to the interests of man. As such, his storiesexpress a profound indiference to human beliefs andafairs. Critics’ attitude to Lovecrat was long coloredby his publication in cheap magazines, low esteem forthe horror genre in which he wrote, and his unique style

— oten condemned as simply “bad”. In 2005 Library of America published a Lovecrat collection, widely seen assignifying that he is now regarded as not only one of themost inluential horror writers of the 20th century, butan important author having literary merit.

1 — Joshi, S. T. (September 2003). “Introduction”. The Weird Tale. Wildside Press. ISBN 978-0-8095-3123-3.



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Polaris { 1918}

Early Life

Lovecrat was born on August 20, 1890in his family home at 194 (later 454) Angell Street inProvidence, Rhode Island.2 (The house was demolishedin 1961.) He was the only child of Wineld ScottLovecrat, a traveling salesman of jewelry and precious

metals, and Sarah Susan Phillips Lovecrat, who couldtrace her ancestry to the Massachusetts Bay Colonyin 1631.His parents married when they were in theirthirties, unusually late in life for the time period.In 1893,

when Lovecrat was three, his father became acutelypsychotic and was placed in the Providence psychiatricinstitution, Butler Hospital, where he remained until his

death in 1898.3 H.P. Lovecrat maintained throughouthis life that his father had died in a condition of paralysisbrought on by “nervous exhaustion”. Although it hasbeen suggested his father’s mental illness may havebeen caused by syphilis, neither the younger Lovecratnor his mother (who also died in Butler Hospital) seemsto have showed signs of being infected with the disease.4

Ater his father’s hospitalization, Lovecrat was raised by his mother, his two aunts (Lillian DeloraPhillips and Annie Emeline Phillips), and his maternalgrandfather, Whipple Van Buren Phillips, an American

2 — a b Joshi, Schultz 2001, p. xiii

3 — Ibdem

4 — Joshi 1996, p. 14



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H. P. Lovecraft

businessman. All ve resided together in the family

home. Lovecrat was a prodigy, reciting poetry at theage of three, and writing complete poems by six. Hisgrandfather encouraged his reading, providing him

with classics such as The Arabian Nights, Bullnch’s Age of Fable, and children’s versions of the Iliad and theOdyssey. His grandfather also stirred the boy’s interestin the weird by telling him his own original tales of

Gothic horror.

Upbringing

Lovecrat was frequently ill as a child.Because of his sickly condition, he barely attended

school until he was eight years old, and then was withdrawn ater a year. He read voraciously during thisperiod and became especially enamored of chemistryand astronomy. He produced several hectographedpublications with a limited circulation, beginning in 1899

with The Scientic Gazette. Four years later, he returnedto public school at Hope High School. Beginning in hisearly life, Lovecrat is believed to have sufered fromnight terrors, a rare parasomnia; he believed himself tobe assaulted at night by horric “night gaunts”. Much ofhis later work is thought to have been directly inspiredby these terrors. (Indeed, “Night Gaunts” became thesubject of a poem he wrote of the same name, in which

they were personied as devil-like creatures withoutfaces.)



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Polaris { 1918}

His grandfather’s death in 1904 greatly

afected Lovecrat’s life. Mismanagement of hisgrandfather’s estate let his family in a poor nancialsituation, and they were forced to move into muchsmaller accommodations at 598 (now a duplex at 598– 600) Angell Street. In 1908, prior to his high schoolgraduation, he claimed to have sufered what he laterdescribed as a “nervous breakdown”, and consequently

never received his high school diploma (although hemaintained for most of his life that he did graduate).S. T. Joshi suggests in his biography of Lovecrat that aprimary cause for this breakdown was his diculty inhigher mathematics, a subject he needed to master tobecome a professional astronomer.

Reclusion

The adult Lovecrat was gaunt with darkeyes set in a very pale face (he rarely went abroad beforenightfall).5 For ve years ater leaving school he livedan isolated existence with his mother, without seekingemployment or new social contacts, primarily writingpoetry. This changed in 1913 when he wrote a letterto The Argosy, a pulp magazine, complaining aboutthe insipidness of the love stories in the publicationby writer Fred Jackson.6 The ensuing debate in the

5 — Ronan, Margaret, Forward to The Shadow Over Innsmouth and Other Stories of Horror, Scholastic Book Services, 1971

6 — Murrary, Will (1991). “Lovecrat and the Pulp Magazine Tradition”. In Schultz, David E.; Joshi, S. T.. An Epicure in

the Terrible: A Centennial Anthology of Essays in Honor of H.P. Lovecra t. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. p. 105.



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H. P. Lovecraft

magazine’s letters column caught the eye of Edward F.

Daas, president of the United Amateur Press Association(UAPA), who invited Lovecrat to join the organizationin 1914.

Writing

The UAPA reinvigorated Lovecrat andincited him to contribute many poems and essays; in1916 his rst published story, The Alchemist, appearedin the United Amateur. The earliest commerciallypublished work came in 1922, when he was aged thirty-one. By this time he had begun to build what becamea huge network of correspondents. His lengthy and

frequent missives would make him one of the great letter writers of the century, Among his correspondents wereRobert Bloch (Psycho), Clark Ashton Smith, and RobertE. Howard (Conan the Barbarian series). Many formeraspiring authors later paid tribute to his mentoring andencouragement through the correspondence.7

His oeuvre is sometimes seen as consistingof three periods: an early Edgar Allen Poe inluence;followed by a Lord Dunsany inspired ‘Dream Cycle’;and nally the Cthulhu Mythos stories. However, manydistinctive ideas and entities present in the third period

were introduced in the earlier works, such as the 1917

ISBN 0-8386-3415-X. Retrieved September 17, 2013.

7 — Ronan, Margaret, Forward to The Shadow Over Innsmouth and Other Stories of Horror, Scholastic Book Services, 1971



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Polaris { 1918}

story Polaris, and the threefold classication is partly

overlapping.

8

Death of mother

In 1919, ater sufering from hysteriaand depression for a long period of time, Lovecrat’s

mother was committed to the mental institution ButlerHospital where her husband had died.9 Nevertheless, she wrote frequent letters to Lovecrat, and they remainedclose until her death on May 24, 1921, the result ofcomplications from gall bladder surgery.

Marriage and New York A few weeks ater his mother’s death,

Lovecrat attended a convention of amateur journalistsin Boston, Massachusetts, where he met Sonia Greene,owner of a successful hat shop and seven years his senior.

A romantic relationship developed, they married in 1924and relocated to her Brooklyn apartment; she thought heneeded to get out of Providence in order to lourish and

was willing to support him nancially. Greene, who hadbeen married before, later said Lovecrat had performedsatisfactorily as a lover, though she had to take theinitiative in all aspects of the relationship. She attributed

8 — Weinstock, J.R., in Forward to The Call of Cthulhu and Other Dark Tales (2009) Barnes and Noble, page X

9 — Joshi, Schultz 2001, p. xv



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H. P. Lovecraft

Lovecrat’s passive nature to a stultifying upbringing

by his mother. Lovecrat’s weight increased to 200 lbson his wife’s home cooking. He was enthralled by New York and in what was informally dubbed the KalemClub, he acquired a group of encouraging intellectualand literary friends who urged him to submit storiesto Weird Tales; editor Edwin Baird accepted manyotherworldly ‘Dream Cycle’ Lovecrat stories for the

ailing publication, though they were heavily criticizedby a section of the readership. Established informallysome years before Lovecrat lived in New York, the coreKalem Club members were: boys’ adventure novelistHenry Everett McNeil; the lawyer and anarchist writerJames Ferdinand Morton, Jr.; and the poet ReinhardtKleiner. In 1924 these four regular attendees were joined

by Lovecrat along with his protégé Frank BelknapLong; bookseller George Willard Kirk and Lovecrat’sclose friend Samuel Loveman. Loveman was Jewish,but was was unaware of Lovecrat’s nativist attitudes.Conversely, it has been suggested Lovecrat, who dislikedmention of sexual matters, was unaware that Lovemanand some of his other friends were homosexual.10

Financial diculties

Not long ater the marriage Green losther business and her assets disappeared in a bank

failure, she also became ill. Lovecrat made eforts to

10 — The Dream World of H. P. Lovecra t: His Life, His Demons, His Universe By Donald Tyson



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Polaris { 1918}

support his wife through regular jobs, but his lack of

work history meant he lacked proven marketable skills. Ater a few unsuccessful spells as a low level clerk hisjob-seeking became desultory. The publisher of WeirdTales attempted to put the loss-making magazineon a business footing and ofered the job of editor toLovecrat, who declined, citing his reluctance to relocateto Chicago; “think of the tragedy of such a move for an

aged antiquarian,” the 34-year-old writer declared. Baird was replaced with Farnsworth Wright, whose writingLovecrat had criticized. Lovecrat’s submissions wereoten rejected by Wright. (This may have been partiallydue to censorship guidelines imposed in the atermathof a Weird Tales story that hinted at necrophilia, butsubsequent to Lovecrat’s demise Wright was to accept

many of the same stories that he had rejected while theauthor was living.)11 12

Red Hook

Green, moving where the work was,relocated to Cincinnati then Cleveland, her employmentrequired constant traveling. Added to the dauntingreality of failure in a city with a large immigrantpopulation, Lovecrat’s single room apartment in therun down area of Red Hook was burgled, leaving him

with only the clothes he was wearing. In August 1925

11 — An H.P. Lovecrat Encyclopedia, ed ited by S. T. Joshi, David E. Schultz, page 294

12 — The Dream World of H. P. Lovecra t: His Life, His Demons, (2010) Page 75



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H. P. Lovecraft

he wrote The Horror at Red Hook and He in which the

narrator says: “My coming to New York had been a mistake; for whereas I had looked for poignant wonder and inspiration(…) I had found instead only a sense of horror and oppressionwhich threatened to master, paralyze, and annihilate me”. It

was at around this time he wrote the outline for TheCall of Cthulhu with its theme of the insignicance of allhumanity. In the bibliographical study H. P. Lovecrat:

Against the World, Against Life, Michel Houellebecqsuggested that the misfortunes fed Lovecrat’s centralmotivation as a writer, which was racial resentment.13

With a weekly allowance Green sent, Lovecrat movedto a working class area of Brooklyn Heights wherehe subsisted in a tiny apartment. He had lost 40 lb ofbodyweight by 1926, when he let for Providence.14 15

Return to Providence

Back in Providence, Lovecrat lived ina “spacious brown Victorian wooden house” at 10Barnes Street until 1933. The same address is givenas the home of Dr. Willett in Lovecrat’s The Case ofCharles Dexter Ward. The period beginning ater hisreturn to Providence — the last decade of his life —

was Lovecrat’s most prolic; in that time he producedshort stories, as well as his longest work The Case of

13 — a b c Michel Houellebecq. H. P. Lovecrat: A gainst the World, Against Life. San Francisco: Believer Books, 20 05.

14 — ibdem.

15 — Joshi, S.T., A Dreamer and a Visionary: H.P. Lovecra t in His Timepage 224-226



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Polaris { 1918}

Charles Dexter Ward and At the Mountains of Madness.

He frequently revised work for other authors and did alarge amount of ghost-writing, including “The Mound”,“Winged Death”, “The Diary of Alonzo Typer”. ClientHarry Houdini was lauditory, and attempted to helpLovecrat by introducing him to the head of a newspapersyndicate. Plans for a further project were ended byHoudini’s death.16

Although he was able to combine hisdistinctive style (allusive and amorphous descriptionby horried though passive narrators) with the kind ofstock content and action Weird Tales’s editor wanted

— Wright paid handsomely to snap up The DunwichHorror which proved very popular with readers —

Lovecrat increasingly produced work that broughthim no remuneration. Afecting a calm indiferenceto the reception of his works, Lovecrat was in realityextremely sensitive to criticism and easily precipitatedinto withdrawal, he was known to give up trying to sella story ater it had been once rejected. Sometimes, as

with The Shadow Over Innsmouth (which included arousing chase that supplied action) he wrote a story thatmight have been commercially viable, but did not try sellit. Lovecrat even ignored interested publishers; failingto reply when one inquired about any novel Lovecratmight have ready, although he had completed such a

16 — Ibdem.



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H. P. Lovecraft

work, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, it was never

typed up.

17

Last years

Throughout his life, selling stories and paidliterary work for others did not provide enough to cover

Lovecrat’s basic expenses. Living frugally, he subsistedon an inheritance that had almost gone in his last years, by which time he sometimes went without foodto aford the cost of mailing letters.18 He was forced tomove to smaller and meaner lodgings with his survivingaunt. He was also deeply afected by the suicide of hiscorrespondent Robert E. Howard. In 1936, Lovecrat

was diagnosed with cancer of the small intestine,19 and as a result he sufered from malnutrition. He livedin constant pain until his death on March 15, 1937, inProvidence.

In accordance with his lifelong scienticcuriosity, he kept a diary of his illness until close to themoment of his death.

Lovecrat was listed along with his parentson the Phillips family monument. That was not enough

17 — Out of the Shadows: A Structurali st Approach to Understanding the Fiction of H. P. Lovecra t (2011) Chapter 10

18 — Out of the Shadows: A Structurali st Approach to Understanding the Fiction of H. P. Lovecra t (2011) Chapter 10

19 — Joshi, S. T. (2001). A Dreamer and a Visionary: H.P. Lovecrat in His Time. Liverp ool University Press. pp. 95, 97, 111,

221–222, 359–360. ISBN 978-0-85323-946-8. Retrieved September 17, 2013.



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Polaris { 1918}

for his fans, who in 1977 raised the money to buy him a

headstone of his own inSwan Point Cemetery, on whichthey had inscribed Lovecrat’s name, the dates of hisbirth and death, and the phrase “I AM PROVIDENCE,” aline from one of his personal letters.



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H. P. Lovecraft

Polaris - an introduction

(from wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaris_(short_story) )

“Polaris” is a short story by H. P. Lovecrat, written in 1918 and rst published in the December 1920

issue of the amateur journal The Philosopher . It is note- worthy as the story that introduces Lovecrat’s ctionalPnakotic Manuscripts, the rst of his arcane tomes.1

Inspiration

Critic William Fulwiler writes that “’Po-laris’ is one of Lovecrat’s most autobiographical sto-ries, relecting his feelings of guilt, frustration, anduselessness during World War I. Like the narrator,HPL was ‘denied a warrior’s part’, for he ‘was feeble

1 — Joshi & Schultz, An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia , pp. 187.



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Polaris { 1918}

and given to strange faintings when subjected to

stress and hardships’”.

2

Like many Lovecrat stories, “Polaris” wasin part inspired by a dream, which he described in aletter: “Several nights ago I had a strange dream of astrange city--a city of many palaces and gilded domes,lying in a hollow betwixt ranges of grey, horrible hills....

I was, as I said, aware of this city visually. I was in it andaround it. But certainly I had no corporeal existence.”3

Lovecrat remarked on the peculiar sim-ilarity of the story’s style to that of Lord Dunsany,

whose work he would not read for another year. An H.P. Lovecrat Encyclopedia suggests that Lovecrat and

Dunsany were both inluenced by the prose poems ofEdgar Allan Poe.4

Plot summary

The story begins with the narrator describ-ing the night sky as observed over long sleepless nightsfrom his window, in particular that of the Pole Star,Polaris, which he describes as “winking hideously likean insane watching eye which strives to convey some

2 — William Fulwiler, “Mail-Call of Cthulhu”, Black Forbidden Things , p. 171; citing H. P.

Lovecraft, “Polaris”, Dagon and Other Macabre Tales , p. 21.

3 — H. P. Lovecraft, Selected Letters Vol. I, p. 62; cited in Joshi and Schultz, p. 211.

4 — Joshi and Schultz, p. 211.



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H. P. Lovecraft

strange message, yet recalls nothing save that it once

had a message to convey”.

He then describes the night of the auro-ra over his house in the swamp and how on this nighthe rst dreamt of a city of marble lying on a plateaubetween two peaks, with Polaris ever watching in thenight sky. The narrator describes ater a while observing

motion within the houses and seeing men beginning topopulate the streets, conversing to each other in lan-guage that he had never heard before but still, strangely,understood. However, before he could learn any more ofthis city, he awoke.

Many times, he would again dream of the

city and the men who dwelt within. Ater a while, thenarrator tired of merely existing as an incorporeal ob-server and began to desire to establish his place with-in the city, simultaneously beginning to question hisconceptualization of what constituted reality and thus

whether this was just a dream or whether it was real.

Then, one night, while listening to dis-courses of those who populate the city, the narrator ob-tains a physical form: not as a stranger, but as an inhab-itant of the city, which he now knew as Olathoë, lyingon the plateau of Sarkis in the land of Lomar, which wasbesieged by an enemy known as the Inutos.

While the other men within the city en-gage in combat with Inutos, the narrator is sent to a



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Polaris { 1918}

watchtower to signal if the Inutos gain access to the city

itself. Within the tower, he notices Polaris in the sky andsenses it as a malign presence, hearing a rhyme whichappears to be spoken by the star:

“Slumber, watcher, till the spheres,

Six and twenty thousand years 5

Have revolv’d, and I return

To the spot where now I burn.Other stars anon shall rise

To the axis of the skies;

Stars that soothe and stars that bless

With a sweet forgetfulness:

Only when my round is o’er

Shall the past disturb thy door.”

Uncertain as to its meaning, he dritsof to sleep, thus failing in his duty to guard Olathoë.Upon awakening, the narrator nds himself back inthe house by the swamp, but the narrator now is con-

vinced that this life is not real but a dream from whichhe cannot awaken.

5 — The period of precession of the equinoxes is close to 25,765 years or approximately 26,000

years.



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H. P. Lovecraft

Polaris

{1918}

Into the north window of my chamberglows the Pole Star with uncanny light. All through the

long hellish hours of blackness it shines there. And inthe autumn of the year, when the winds from the northcurse and whine, and the red-leaved trees of the swampmutter things to one another in the small hours of themorning under the horned waning moon, I sit by thecasement and watch that star. Down from the heightsreels the glittering Cassiopeia as the hours wear on,

while Charles’ Wain lumbers up from behind the va-pour-soaked swamp trees that sway in the night-wind.Just before dawn Arcturus winks ruddily from abovethe cemetery on the low hillock, and Coma Berenicesshimmers weirdly afar of in the mysterious east; butstill the Pole Star leers down from the same place in the

black vault, winking hideously like an insane watchingeye which strives to convey some strange message, yet



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Polaris {1918}

recalls nothing save that it once had a message to con-

vey. Sometimes, when it is cloudy, I can sleep.

Well do I remember the night of thegreat Aurora, when over the swamp played the shockingcoruscations of the daemon-light. Ater the beams cameclouds, and then I slept.

And it was under a horned waningmoon that I saw the city for the rst time. Still andsomnolent did it lie, on a strange plateau in a hollowbetwixt strange peaks. Of ghastly marble were its wallsand its towers, its columns, domes, and pavements. Inthe marble streets were marble pillars, the upper partsof which were carven into the images of grave bearded

men. The air was warm and stirred not. And overhead,scarce ten degrees from the zenith, glowed that watch-ing Pole Star. Long did I gaze on the city, but the daycame not. When the red Aldebaran, which blinked lowin the sky but never set, had crawled a quarter of the

way around the horizon, I saw light and motion in thehouses and the streets. Forms strangely robed, but atonce noble and familiar, walked abroad, and under thehorned waning moon men talked wisdom in a tongue

which I understood, though it was unlike any languageI had ever known. And when the red Aldebaran hadcrawled more than half way around the horizon, there

were again darkness and silence.

When I awaked, I was not as I had been.Upon my memory was graven the vision of the city, and



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H. P. Lovecraft

within my soul had arisen another and vaguer recollec-

tion, of whose nature I was not then certain. Thereater,on the cloudy nights when I could sleep, I saw the cityoten; sometimes under that horned waning moon, andsometimes under the hot yellow rays of a sun which didnot set, but which wheeled low around the horizon. Andon the clear nights the Pole Star leered as never before.

Gradually I came to wonder what mightbe my place in that city on the strange plateau betwixtstrange peaks. At rst content to view the scene as anall-observant uncorporeal presence, I now desired to de-ne my relation to it, and to speak my mind amongstthe grave men who conversed each day in the publicsquares. I said to myself, “This is no dream, for by what

means can I prove the greater reality of that other life inthe house of stone and brick south of the sinister swampand the cemetery on the low hillock, where the Pole Starpeers into my north window each night?”

One night as I listened to the discoursein the large square containing many statues, I felt achange; and perceived that I had at last a bodily form.Nor was I a stranger in the streets of Olathoë, which lieson the plateau of Sarkis, betwixt the peaks Noton andKadiphonek. It was my friend Alos who spoke, and hisspeech was one that pleased my soul, for it was the speechof a true man and patriot. That night had the news come

of Daikos’ fall, and of the advance of the Inutos; squat,hellish, yellow ends who ve years ago had appearedout of the unknown west to ravage the connes of our



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Polaris {1918}

kingdom, and nally to besiege our towns. Having tak-

en the fortied places at the foot of the mountains, their way now lay open to the plateau, unless every citizencould resist with the strength of ten men. For the squatcreatures were mighty in the arts of war, and knew notthe scruples of honour which held back our tall, grey-eyed men of Lomar from ruthless conquest.

Alos, my friend, was commander of allthe forces on the plateau, and in him lay the last hope ofour country. On this occasion he spoke of the perils tobe faced, and exhorted the men of Olathoë, bravest ofthe Lomarians, to sustain the traditions of their ances-tors, who when forced to move southward from Zobnabefore the advance of the great ice-sheet (even as our

descendants must some day lee from the land of Lo-mar), valiantly and victoriously swept aside the hairy,long-armed, cannibal Gnophkehs that stood in their

way. To me Alos denied a warrior’s part, for I was feebleand given to strange faintings when subjected to stressand hardships. But my eyes were the keenest in the city,despite the long hours I gave each day to the study of thePnakotic manuscripts and the wisdom of the Zobnar-ian Fathers; so my friend, desiring not to doom me toinaction, rewarded me with that duty which was secondto nothing in importance. To the watch-tower of Thap-nen he sent me, there to serve as the eyes of our army.Should the Inutos attempt to gain the citadel by the nar-

row pass behind the peak Noton, and thereby surprisethe garrison, I was to give the signal of re which would



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H. P. Lovecraft

warn the waiting soldiers and save the town from im-

mediate disaster.

Alone I mounted the tower, for everyman of stout body was needed in the passes below. Mybrain was sore dazed with excitement and fatigue, for Ihad not slept in many days; yet was my purpose rm, forI loved my native land of Lomar, and the marble city of

Olathoë that lies betwixt the peaks of Noton and Kadi-phonek.

But as I stood in the tower’s topmostchamber, I beheld the horned waning moon, red andsinister, quivering through the vapours that hoveredover the distant valley of Banof. And through an open-

ing in the roof glittered the pale Pole Star, luttering asif alive, and leering like a end and tempter. Methoughtits spirit whispered evil counsel, soothing me to traitor-ous somnolence with a damnable rhythmical promise

which it repeated over and over:

“Slumber, watcher, till the spheres

Six and twenty thousand years

Have revolv’d, and I return

To the spot where now I burn.

Other stars anon shall rise

To the axis of the skies;

Stars that soothe and stars that bless

With a sweet forgetfulness: Only when my round is o’er

Shall the past disturb thy door.”



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Polaris {1918}

Vainly did I struggle with my drowsiness,seeking to connect these strange words with some loreof the skies which I had learnt from the Pnakotic man-uscripts. My head, heavy and reeling, drooped to mybreast, and when next I looked up it was in a dream;

with the Pole Star grinning at me through a windowfrom over the horrible swaying trees of a dream-swamp.

And I am still dreaming.

In my shame and despair I sometimesscream frantically, begging the dream-creatures aroundme to waken me ere the Inutos steal up the pass behindthe peak Noton and take the citadel by surprise; butthese creatures are daemons, for they laugh at me and

tell me I am not dreaming. They mock me whilst I sleep,and whilst the squat yellow foe may be creeping silentlyupon us. I have failed in my duty and betrayed the mar-ble city of Olathoë; I have proven false to Alos, my friendand commander. But still these shadows of my dreamderide me. They say there is no land of Lomar, save inmy nocturnal imaginings; that in those realms wherethe Pole Star shines high and red Aldebaran crawls lowaround the horizon, there has been naught save iceand snow for thousands of years, and never a man savesquat yellow creatures, blighted by the cold, whom theycall “Esquimaux”.

And as I writhe in my guilty agony, fran-tic to save the city whose peril every moment grows,and vainly striving to shake of this unnatural dream



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