Memory,
A short story written by H.
P.
Lovecraft In the valley of Nis,
The accursed waning moon shines thinly,
Tearing a path for its light with feeble horns through the lethal foliage of a great upas tree.
And within the depths of the valley,
Where the light reaches not,
Move forms not meant to be beheld.
Rank is the herbage on each slope,
Where evil vines and creeping plants crawl amidst the stones of ruined palaces,
Twining tightly about broken columns and strange monoliths,
And heating up marble pavements laid by forgotten forgotten hands.
And in trees that grow gigantic,
In crumbling courtyards leap little apes,
While in and out of deep treasure vaults writhe poison,
Serpents,
And scaly things without a name.
Vast are the stones which sleep beneath the coverlets of dank moss,
And mighty were the walls from which they fell.
For all time their builders erect them,
And in sooth they yet serve nobly,
For beneath them the grey toad makes his habitation.
At the very bottom of the valley lies the river Than,
Whose waters are slimy and filled with weeds.
From hidden springs it rises,
And to subterranean grottoes it flows,
So that the daemon of the valley Knows not why its waters are red.
Nor whither they are bound.
The genie that haunts the moonbeams spake to the daemon of the valley,
Saying,
I am old and forget much.
Tell me the deeds and aspect and name of them who built these things of stone.
And the daemon replied,
I am memory.
And am wise in the lore of the past,
But I too am old.
These beings were like the waters of the river Than,
Not to be understood.
Their deeds I recall not,
For they were but of the moment.
Their aspect I recall dimly.
For it was like to that of the little apes in the trees.
Their names I recall clearly.
For it rhymed with that of the river.
These beings of yesterday were called man.
So the genie flew back to the thin-horned moon,
And the daemon looked intently at a little ape in the tree that grew in a crumbling courtyard.
