u/StrangerInTatters

I saw at last the yellow hangings of the theatre,
and the yellow stage whereon I played my part.

And in the dim assembly beyond,
there watched familiar countenances grown terrible and unknown to me.
Their eyes were fixed upon us.
None did stir.

Then the yellow, pallid curtains closed.
Silence descended.

And my face slipped softly from my skull
and lay upon the stage.

I see it now.

It was but a mask.

Along the shore the cloud waves break,

The twin suns sink beneath the lake,

The shadows lengthen

ㅤ In Carcosa.

Strange is the night where black stars rise,

And strange moons circle through the skies

But stranger still is

ㅤ Lost Carcosa.

Songs that the Hyades shall sing,

Where flap the tatters of the King,

Must die unheard in

ㅤ Dim Carcosa.

Song of my soul, my voice is dead;

Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed

Shall dry and die in

ㅤ Lost Carcosa.

Grant us not mercy, for mercy is of lesser things,
But the slow unspooling of certainty,
The gentle collapse of all that is known,
And the whisper of Carcosa upon the mind’s last shore.

In Thine unlighted dominion we are unmade,
And in our unmaking we are, for a moment, aware.

So do we speak Thee, so do we fear Thee,
So do we turn away---and turn again.