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The place was dark and dusty and half-lost
In tangles of old alleys near the quays,
Reeking of strange things brought in from the seas,
And with queer curls of fog that west winds tossed.
Small lozenge panes, obscured by smoke and frost,
Just showed the books, in piles like twisted trees,
Rotting from floor to roof - congeries
Of crumbling elder lore at little cost.
I entered, charmed, and from a cobwebbed heap
Took up the nearest tome and thumbed it through,
Trembling at curious words that seemed to keep
Some secret, monstrous if one only knew.
Then, looking for some seller old in craft,
I could find nothing but a voice that laughed.
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Hiding within a maze of passages
Close to the port, where rotten litter stank,
I found the remote bookshop, cooped and dank,
Befouled with smells and noisome leakages.
Rooms full of bloodstained vellum; cursed pages
Like fungous blooms (mutant yet swollen growths!)
Clung loftward there. There, I knew it, were myths -
Legends telling of some dark-centred Age.
I rooted out one bunch of old grimoires,
Blotched with bright mould and cysts. Loath to tarry,
I scanned those ancient sheets and tattered quires,
Keen to enquire of Cthulhu's starry
Realm. No booktrading babble - just, far-off,
The stirrings of some strange and spectred scoff.
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