Howard Lovecraft

Omnia risus et omnia pulvis et omnia nihil

I saw the lake’s dull water glow

Till sunken things appear’d below.

There shone unnumber’d fathoms down,

The tow’rs of a forgotten town;

The tarnish’d domes and mossy walls;

Weed-tangled spires and empty halls

To the Old Pagan Religion
Olympian gods! How can I let ye go

And pin my faith to this new Christian creed?

Can I resign the deities I know

For him who on a cross for man did bleed?

How in my weakness can my hopes depend

On one lone God, though mighty be his pow’r?

Why can Jove’s host no more assistance lend,

To soothe my pain, and cheer my troubled hour?

Are there no Dryads on these wooded mounts

O’er which I oft in desolation roam?

Are there no Naiads in these crystal founts?

Nor Nereids upon the Ocean foam?

Fast spreads the new; the older faith declines.

The name of Christ resounds upon the air.

But my wrack’d soul in solitude repines

And gives the Gods their last-receivèd pray’r.

The modern world, with all it’s care & pain,

But the horror, set and stable,

Haunts my soul for evermore

As Slater grew older, it appeared, his matutinal aberrations had gradually increased in frequency and violence; till about a month before his arrival at the institution had occurred the shocking tragedy which caused his arrest by the authorities

I cannot think of the deep sea without shuddering at the nameless things that may at this very moment be crawling and floundering on its slimy bed,

winking hideously like an insane watching eye which strives to convey some strange message, yet recalls nothing save that it once had a message to convey.

I am an entity like that which you yourself become in the freedom of dreamless sleep. I am your brother of light, and have floated with you in the effulgent valleys. It is not permitted me to tell your waking earth-self of your real self, but we are all roamers of vast spaces and travellers in many ages. Next year I may be dwelling in the dark Egypt which you call ancient, or in the cruel empire of Tsan-Chan which is to come three thousand years hence. You and I have drifted to the worlds that reel about the red Arcturus, and dwelt in the bodies of the insect-philosophers that crawl proudly over the fourth moon of Jupiter. How little does the earth-self know of life and its extent! How little, indeed, ought it to know for its own tranquillity!

In that moment it seemed as if all the hidden terrors and monstrosities of earth had become articulate in an effort to overwhelm the human race.