Black Hounds of Death

  Who penned this lyric? Who this sonnet? Whence

  The soul of fire that snared these stars in song?

  Who knows? Who cares? A vast indifference

  Is all the answer of the marching throng.

  THE SINGER IN THE MIST

  Weird Tales, April 1938

  At birth a witch laid on me monstrous spells,

  And I have trod strange highroads all my days,

  Turning my feet to gray, unholy ways.

  I grope for stems of broken asphodels;

  High on the rims of bare, fiend-haunted fells,

  I follow cloven tracks that lie ablaze;

  And ghosts have led me through the moonlight’s haze

  To talk with demons in the granite hells.

  Seas crash upon dragon-guarded shores,

  Bursting in crimson moons of burning spray,

  And iron castles ope to me their doors,

  And serpent-women lure with harp and lay.

  The misty waves shake now to phantom oars—

  Seek not for me; I sail to meet the day.

  Table of Contents

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  ALSO BY ROBERT E. HOWARD

  INTRODUCTION, by Mark Finn

  BLACK CANAAN

  ALWAYS COMES EVENING

  RED NAILS

  SOLOMON KANE’S HOMECOMING

  THE BLACK HOUND OF DEATH

  THE FIRE OF ASSHURBANIPAL

  DIG ME NO GRAVE

  THE SOUL-EATER

  THE DREAM AND THE SHADOW

  WHICH WILL SCARCELY BE UNDERSTOOD

  FUTILITY

  FRAGMENT

  HAUNTING COLUMNS

  THE POETS

  THE SINGER IN THE MIST