Arkham by Robert E. Howard (Poem)

“Arkham” is a short, 4-line poem that was first published in the August 1932 issue of Weird Tales. It has been republished in several Robert E. Howard anthologies including Dark of the Moon: Poems of Fantasy and the Macabre (1969), Rhymes of Death (1975), and Cthulhu: The Mythos and Kindred Horrors (1987).

Arkham is a fictional American city created by H. P. Lovecraft. It first appeared in his story “The Picture in the House“. Arkham featured in many of his later stories, as well as Cthulhu Mythos stories written by other authors including August Derleth, and, of course, Robert E. Howard.

 

About Robert E. Howard

Robert Ervin Howard was an American writer of pulp fiction. Often considered to be the man who began the sword and sorcery subgenre, Howard was the creator of Conan the Barbarian.

Howard began writing fiction when he was just nine years old. In December 1922, aged 16, his work began paying off when The Tattler (Brownwood High School newspaper) printed two of his stories: “‘Golden Hope Christmas” and “West is West”. Then, in 1924, after years of having his stories rejected by Weird Tales, he made his first sale to the magazine with a caveman story called “Spear and Fang”. This marked the start of Howard’s career as a pulp fiction writer and Weird Tales subsequently became one of his main outlets for weird fiction.

 

Arkham

By Robert E. Howard

Drowsy and dull with age the houses blink
On aimless streets the rat-gnawed years forget—
But what inhuman figures leer and slink
Down the old alleys when the moon has set?

 

Robert E. Howard (1906 – 1936)