The Cats by H. P. Lovecraft (Poem)
I am unsure when “The Cats” first appeared in print. Multiple sources suggest it’s a poem that was first published posthumously in A Winter Wish and Other Poems—a Lovecraft poetry collection published by Whispers Press in 1977.
About H.P. Lovecraft
Best known for creating the Cthulhu Mythos, Howard Phillips Lovecraft was an American author of speculative fiction, much of which falls in the subgenre of weird fiction. During his lifetime Lovecraft’s work received only limited recognition, but gradually caught on and he is now considered to be one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th Century.
Lovecraft was a great fan of Edgar Allan Poe, who he once described as his “God of Fiction.” He began reading Poe’s work when he was just eight years old becoming significantly influenced by his prose and style of writing. Later influences include Lord Dunsany, Arthur Machen, and Algernon Blackwood.
Lovecraft’s work has inspired many prominent modern-day horror writers including Ramsay Campbell, Brian Lumley, and Stephen King,
The Cats
by H. P. Lovecraft
Babels of blocks to the high heavens tow’ring,
Flames of futility swirling below;
Poisonous fungi in brick and stone flow’ring,
Lanterns that shudder and death-lights that glow.
Black monstrous bridges across oily rivers,
Cobwebs of cable by nameless things spun;
Catacomb deeps whose dank chaos delivers
Streams of live foetor, that rots in the sun.
Colour and splendour, disease and decaying,
Shrieking and ringing and scrambling insane,
Rabbles exotic to stranger-gods praying,
Jumbles of odour that stifle the brain.
Legions of cats from the alleys nocturnal,
Howling and lean in the glare of the moon,
Screaming the future with mouthings infernal,
Yelling the burden of Pluto’s red rune.
Tall tow’rs and pyramids ivy’d and crumbling,
Bats that swoop low in the weed-cumber’d streets;
Bleak broken bridges o’er rivers whose rumbling
Joins with no voice as the thick tide retreats.
Belfries that blackly against the moon totter,
Caverns whose mouths are by mosses effac’d,
And living to answer the wind and the water,
Only the lean cats that howl in the waste!
~~~