Coming Of Conan The Cimmerian

Cimmeria Written in Mission, Texas, February, 1932; suggested by the memory of the hill-country above Fredericksburg seen in a mist of winter rain. Robert E. Howard Cimmeria I remember The dark woods, masking slopes of sombre hills; The grey clouds' leaden everlasting arch; The dusky streams that flowed without a sound, And the lone winds that whispered down the passes. Vista on vista marching, hills on hills, Slope beyond slope, each dark with sullen trees, Our gaunt land lay. So when a man climbed up A rugged peak and gazed, his shaded eye Saw but the endless vista - hill on hill, Slope beyond slope, each hooded like its brothers. It was a gloomy land that seemed to hold All winds and clouds and dreams that shun the sun, With bare boughs rattling in the lonesome winds, And the dark woodlands brooding over all, Not even lightened by the rare dim sun Which made squat shadows out of men; they called it Cimmeria, land of Darkness and deep Night. It was so long ago and far away I have forgot the very name men called me. The axe and flint-tipped spear are like a dream, And hunts and wars are shadows. I recall Only the stillness of that sombre land; The clouds that piled forever on the hills, The dimness of the everlasting woods. Cimmeria, land of Darkness and the Night. Oh, soul of mine, born out of shadowed hills, To clouds and winds and ghosts that shun the sun, How many deaths shall serve to break at last This heritage which wraps me in the grey Apparel of ghosts? I search my heart and find Cimmeria, land of Darkness and the Night. The Phoenix on the Sword The Phoenix on the Sword "Know, oh prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars - Nemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyperborea, Zamora with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery, Zingara with its chivalry, Koth that bordered on the pastoral lands of Shem, Stygia with its shadow-guarded tombs, Hyrkania whose riders wore steel and silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom of the world was Aquilonia, reigning supreme in the dreaming west. Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet." - The Nemedian Chronicles. Over shadowy spires and gleaming towers lay the ghostly darkness and silence that runs before dawn. Into a dim alley, one of a veritable labyrinth of mysterious winding ways, four masked figures came hurriedly from a door which a dusky hand furtively opened. They spoke not but went swiftly into the gloom, cloaks wrapped closely about them; as silently as the ghosts of murdered men they disappeared in the darkness. Behind them a sardonic countenance was framed in the partly opened door; a pair of evil eyes glittered malevolently in the gloom. "Go into the night, creatures of the night," a voice mocked. "Oh, fools, your doom hounds your heels like a blind dog, and you know it not." The speaker closed the door and bolted it, then turned and went up the corridor, candle in hand. He was a somber giant, whose dusky skin revealed his Stygian blood. He came into an inner chamber, where a tall, lean man in worn velvet lounged like a great lazy cat on a silken couch, sipping wine from a huge golden goblet. "Well, Ascalante," said the Stygian, setting down the candle, "your dupes have slunkHoward, Robert E. is the author of 'Coming Of Conan The Cimmerian ', published 2005 under ISBN 9780345483850 and ISBN 0345483855.