The Ancient Track: The Complete Poetical Works of H.P. Lovecraft (second revised edition)

The Ancient Track:
The Complete Poetical Works
of H.P. Lovecraft
(second revised edition)

By H.P. Lovecraft
Edited by S.T. Joshi

Back Cover Text

“There was no hand to hold me back
That night I found the ancient track.”

The publication in 2001 of The Ancient Track: The Complete Poetical Works of H. P. Lovecraft was a landmark. For the first time, all of Lovecraft’s 500 or more poems—including hundreds of Christmas greetings, untitled poems, fragments, and poems embedded in his published and unpublished letters—were gathered in accurate texts, with critical commentary and full bibliography.

Since that time, a dozen or more poems or poetic fragments have been discovered by scholars and researchers, and this new edition prints these items along with several other works of interest. Poems that Lovecraft revised for various authors are included, along with (where extant) the original poems that served as the basis for the revisions. The original versions of poems by Ovid, Horace, and other classical poets that Lovecraft translated are provided. In addition, the commentary and bibliography have been thoroughly revised and updated.

It can well be said that this second edition of The Ancient Track is the definitive collection of Lovecraft’s entire poetic output. It has been edited by S. T. Joshi, a leading authority on Lovecraft and the editor of Lovecraft’s collected fiction, revisions, essays, and letters.

Introduction
I. Juvenilia: 1897–1905

The Poem of Ulysses, or The Odyssey
Ovid’s Metamorphoses
H. Lovecraft’s Attempted Journey betwixt Providence & Fall River on the N.Y.N.H. & H.R.R.
Poemata Minora, Volume II

Ode to Selene or Diana
To the Old Pagan Religion
On the Ruin of Rome
To Pan
On the Vanity of Human Ambition

C.S.A. 1861–1865
De Triumpho Naturae

II. Fantasy and Horror

To the Late John H. Fowler, Esq.
The Unknown
The Poe-et’s Nightmare
The Rutted Road
Nemesis
Astrophobos
Psychopompos: A Tale in Rhyme
The Eidolon
A Cycle of Verse

Oceanus
Clouds
Mother Earth

Despair
Revelation
The House
The City
To Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Eighteenth Baron Dunsany
Bells
The Nightmare Lake
On Reading Lord Dunsany’s Book of Wonder
To a Dreamer
With a Copy of Wilde’s Fairy Tales
[On The Thing in the Woods by Harper Williams]
The Cats
Primavera
Festival
Hallowe’en in a Suburb
[On Ambrose Bierce]
The Wood
The Outpost
The Ancient Track
The Messenger
Fungi from Yuggoth

The Book
Pursuit
The Key
Recognition
Homecoming
The Lamp
Zaman’s Hill
The Port
The Courtyard
The Pigeon-Flyers
The Well
The Howler
Hesperia
Star-Winds
Antarktos
The Window
A Memory
The Gardens of Yin
The Bells
Night-Gaunts
Nyarlathotep
Azathoth
Mirage
The Canal
St. Toad’s
The Familiars
The Elder Pharos
Expectancy
Nostalgia
Background
The Dweller
Alienation
Harbour Whistles
Recapture
Evening Star
Continuity

Bouts Rimés

Beyond Zimbabwe
The White Elephant

In a Sequester’d Providence Churchyard Where Once Poe Walk’d
To Mr. Finlay, upon His Drawing for Mr. Bloch’s Tale, “The Faceless God”
To Clark Ashton Smith, Esq., upon His Phantastick Tales, Verses, Pictures, and Sculptures
Nathicana

III. Occasional Verse

The Members of the Men’s Club of the First Universalist Church of Providence, R.I., to Its President, About to Leave for Florida on Account of His Health
To Mr. Terhune, on His Historical Fiction
To Mr. Munroe, on His Instructive and Entertaining Account of Switzerland
Regner Lodbrog’s Epicedium
To an Accomplished Young Gentlewoman on Her Birthday, Decr. 2, 1914
To the Recipient of This Volume
On Receiving a Picture of Swans
To Charlie of the Comics
On the Cowboys of the West
To Samuel Loveman, Esquire, on His Poetry and Drama, Writ in the Elizabethan Style
The Bookstall
Content
The Smile
Inspiration
Respite
Brotherhood
Lines on Graduation from the R.I. Hospital’s School of Nurses
Fact and Fancy
Percival Lowell
Prologue to “Fragments from an Hour of Inspiration” by Jonathan E. Hoag
Earth and Sky
To M. W. M.
Lines on the 25th. Anniversary of the Providence Evening News, 1892–1917
To the Nurses of the Red Cross
To the Arcadian
Laeta; A Lament
To Mr. Kleiner, on Receiving from Him the Poetical Works of Addison, Gay, and Somerville
A Pastoral Tragedy of Appleton, Wisconsin
Damon and Delia, a Pastoral
To Delia, Avoiding Damon
Hellas
Ambition
To Alfred Galpin, Esq.
To the Eighth of November
Damon: A Monody
Hylas and Myrrha: A Tale
John Oldham: A Defence
Myrrha and Strephon
Wisdom
Birthday Lines to Margfred Galbraham
Tryout’s Lament for the Vanished Spider
Cindy: Scrub-Lady in a State Street Skyscraper
The Voice
On a Grecian Colonnade in a Park
The Dream
On Receiving a Portraiture of Mrs. Berkeley, y^e Poetess
To a Youth
On the Return of Maurice Winter Moe, Esq., to the Pedagogical Profession
To Mr. Galpin
Sir Thomas Tryout
To Damon
To Rheinhart Kleiner, Esq.
Chloris and Damon
To Endymion
To Mr. Baldwin, on Receiving a Picture of Him in a Rural Bower
Damon and Lycë
[On the Pyramids]
[Stanzas on Samarkand]
[On Rheinhart Kleiner Being Hit by an Automobile]
To Samuel Loveman Esq.
To Saml Loveman Esq.
To George Kirk, Esq.
My Favourite Character
[On the Double-R Coffee House]
[To Frank Belknap Long on His Birthday]
A Year Off
To an Infant
To George Willard Kirk, Gent., of Chelsea-Village, in New-York, upon His Birthday, Novr. 25, 1925
[On Old Grimes by Albert Gorton Greene]
In Memoriam: Oscar Incoul Verelst of Manhattan
The Return
Hedone
To Miss Beryl Hoyt
Dirge of the Doomed
To a Sophisticated Young Gentleman
Veteropinguis Redivivus
To a Young Poet in Dunedin
[Metrical Example]
The Odes of Horace: Book III, ix
Gaudeamus
The Greatest Law
[Sonnet Study]
Verses Designed to Be Sent by a Friend of the Author to His Brother-in-Law on New Year’s Day
[To a Cat]

IV. Satire

Providence in 2000 A.D.
Fragment on Whitman
[On Robert Browning]
Ad Criticos
Frustra Praemunitus
De Scriptore Mulieroso
On a Modern Lothario
The End of the Jackson War
Gryphus in Asinum Mutatus
The Power of Wine: A Satire
The Simple Speller’s Tale
[On Slang]
Ye Ballade of Patrick von Flynn
The Isaacsonio-Mortoniad
Unda; or, The Bride of the Sea
[On “Unda; or, The Bride of the Sea”]
Gems from In a Minor Key
The State of Poetry
The Magazine Poet
My Lost Love
The Beauties of Peace
Epitaph on y^e Letterr Rrr. . . . . . .
The Dead Bookworm
Ad Balneum
[On Kelso the Poet]
Futurist Art
The Nymph’s Reply to the Modern Business Man
The Poet of Passion
On the Death of a Rhyming Critic
To the Incomparable Clorinda
To Saccharissa, Fairest of Her Sex
To Rhodoclia—Peerless among Maidens
To Belinda, Favourite of the Graces
To Heliodora—Sister of Cytheraea
To Mistress Sophia Simple, Queen of the Cinema
The Introduction
Grace
To Col. Linkaby Didd
Amissa Minerva
[On Prohibition]
Monody on the Late King Alcohol
The Pensive Swain
To Phillis
The Poet’s Rash Excuse
On Religion
The Pathetick History of Sir Wilful Wildrake
Medusa: A Portrait
Simplicity: A Poem
Plaster-All
To Zara
Waste Paper
[On a Politician]
[On a Room for Rent]
[On J. F. Roy Erford]
Lines upon the Magnates of the Pulp
Dead Passion’s Flame
Arcadia
Lullaby for the Dionne Quintuplets
The Decline and Fall of a Man of the World
[Epigrams]

On a Poem for Children, Writ by J. M. W.
On ———’s Gaining in Weight
Lines on a Dull Writer Having Insomnia
On a Pathetick Poem, by J. M. W.
Idle Lines on a Poetick Dunce
On the Habit of Letter-Writing

Life’s Mystery
On Mr. L. Phillips Howard’s Profound Poem Entitled “Life’s Mystery”
On an Accomplished Young Linguist
“The Poetical Punch” Pushed from His Pedestal
The Road to Ruin
Sors Poetae

V. Seasonal and Topographical

Quinsnicket Park
New England
March
A Mississippi Autumn
A Rural Summer Eve
Brumalia
On Receiving a Picture of the Marshes at Ipswich
A Garden
April
On Receiving a Picture of y^e Towne of Templeton, in the Colonie of Massachusetts-Bay, with Mount Monadnock, in New-Hampshire, Shewn in the Distance
Autumn
Sunset
Old Christmas
A Summer Sunset and Evening
A Winter Wish
Ver Rusticum
A June Afternoon
The Spirit of Summer
August
Spring
April Dawn
January
October
Christmas
[On Marblehead]
[On a Scene in Rural Rhode Island]
Providence
Solstice
October
[On Newport, Rhode Island]
The East India Brick Row
On an Unspoil’d Rural Prospect
Saturnalia
[Christmas Greetings (110)]

VI. Amateur Affairs

To the Members of the Pin-Feathers on the Merits of Their Organisation, and of Their New Publication, The Pinfeather
To the Rev. James Pyke
To the Members of the United Amateur Press Association from the Providence Amateur Press Club
The Bay-Stater’s Policy
To “The Scribblers”
R. Kleiner, Laureatus, in Heliconem
Providence Amateur Press Club (Deceased) to the Athenaeum Club of Journalism
To Mr. Lockhart, on His Poetry
To Jonathan E. Hoag, Esq.
To Arthur Goodenough, Esq.
To the A.H.S.P.C., on Receipt of the Christmas Pippin
Greetings

To Arthur Goodenough, Esq.
To W. Paul Cook, Esq.
To E. Sherman Cole
To the Silver Clarion

To Jonathan Hoag, Esq.
In Memoriam: J. E. T. D.
To the A.H.S.P.C., on Receipt of the May Pippin
Helene Hoffman Cole: 1893–1919
On Collaboration
Ad Scribam
Ex-Poet’s Reply
To Two Epgephi
Theobaldian Aestivation
The Prophecy of Capys Secundus
(Wet) Dream Song
To Mr. Hoag
On a Poet’s Ninety-first Birthday
To Saml: Loveman, Gent.
To Mr. Hoag
The Feast
Lines for Poets’ Night at the Scribblers’ Club
To Mr. Hoag
To Mr. Hoag
To Jonathan Hoag
To Jonathan E. Hoag, Esq.
The Absent Leader
Ave atque Vale

VII. Politics and Society

New-England Fallen
On the Creation of Niggers
On a New-England Village Seen by Moonlight
To General Villa
The Teuton’s Battle-Song
1914
The Crime of Crimes
An American to Mother England
Temperance Song
The Rose of England
Lines on Gen. Robert Edward Lee
Britannia Victura
Pacifist War Song—1917
Iterum Conjunctae
The Peace Advocate
To Greece, 1917
Ode for July Fourth, 1917
An American to the British Flag
The Volunteer
Ad Britannos—1918
On a Battlefield in Picardy
The Link
To Alan Seeger
Germania—1918
The Conscript
To Maj.-Gen. Omar Bundy, U.S.A.
Theodore Roosevelt
North and South Britons

VIII. Personal

[To His Mother on Thanksgiving]
An Elegy on Franklin Chase Clark, M.D.
[The Solace of Georgian Poetry]
[On Phillips Gamwell]
An Elegy on Phillips Gamwell, Esq.
Sonnet on Myself
Phaeton
Monos: An Ode
Oct. 17, 1919
To S. S. L.—Oct. 17, 1920
S. S. L.: Christmas 1920
To Xanthippe, on Her Birthday—March 16, 1925
Είς Σφίγγην
[On Cheating the Post Office]
An Epistle to the Rt. Hon^ble Maurice Winter Moe, Esq. of Zythopolis, in the Northwest Territory of HIS MAJESTY’S American Dominions
[Anthem of the Kappa Alpha Tau]
Edith Miniter
[Little Sam Perkins]

IX. Alfredo; A Tragedy
X. Fragments
Appendix 1: Lovecraft’s Revisions of Poetry

A Prayer for Universal Peace, by Robert L. Selle, D.D.
[On the Duke of Leeds], by Unknown
Mors Omnibus Communis, by Sonia H. Greene
Alone, by Jonathan E. Hoag
Unity, by Unknown
The Dweller, by William Lumley
Dreams of Yith, by Duane W. Rimel
[On John Donne], by Lee McBride White
The Wanderer’s Return, by Wilson Shepherd

Appendix 2: Poems by Others

Metamorphoses 1.1–88, by Ovid (P. Ovidius Naso)
Our Apology to E. M. W., by John Russell
Florida, by John Russell
Regner Lodbrug’s Epicedium, by Olaus Wormius, tr. Hugh Blair
A Prayer for Universal Peace, by Robert L. Selle, D.D.
To Mary of the Movies, by Rheinhart Kleiner
A Prayer for Peace and Justice, by Henry F. Thomas
The Modern Business Man to His Love, by Olive G. Owen
His Frank Self-Expression, by Paul Shivell
To a Movie Star, by Rheinhart Kleiner
[On the Duke of Leeds], by Unknown
Ruth, by Rheinhart Kleiner
Only a Volunteer, by Sergt. Hayes P. Miller, 17th Aero-Squadran, U.S.A.
John Oldham: 1653–1683, by Rheinhart Kleiner
To Miriam, by Rheinhart Kleiner
Ethel: Cashier in a Broad Street Buffet, by Rheinhart Kleiner
Pastorale, by Hart Crane
Odes 3.9, by Horace (Q. Horatius Flaccus)
[On John Donne], by Lee McBride White
Irony, by Wilson Shepherd

Notes
Bibliography
A Chronology of Lovecraft’s Poems
Index of Titles
Index of First Lines

Topical Index

David Haden has compiled An Index to topical subjects in this book.

Bibliographic Information

The Ancient Track: The Complete Poetical Works of H.P. Lovecraft (second revised edition). By H.P. Lovecraft, Edited by S.T. Joshi. New York, NY: Hippocampus Press; 2013; soft cover: ISBN 978-1-61498-070-4.

Purchasing This Book

This book may be purchased in softcover from Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble or directly from the publisher, Hippocampus Press.

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This page last revised 6 September 2021.

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By H.P. LovecraftEdited by S.T. Joshi

Back Cover Text

Contents

Topical Index

Bibliographic Information

Purchasing This Book

By H.P. Lovecraft
Edited by S.T. Joshi