The Well of Night, Part 2

A vivid vision came of elder days,
When next I fast and deeply dreaming lay,
A city built by men, and looming o’er,
A pillared temple on a lofty tor,
And there within that thing I did behold,
That door to death and endless darkness cold,
     That thing of stealthy malice cold.

An age the city flourished unaware,
The scent of herbal gardens laced the air,
And countless sculpted towers rose on high,
As children’s laughter mixed with hawkers cries,
Around the market squares and tree lined ways,
That wandered down from homes to lakeside quays,
     To bustling lakeside harbor quays.

But ever on the road that climbed the tor,
Up to the many pillared temple’s door,
Were slaves, in twos and threes, by night or day,
But always climbing up the winding way,
And never coming down, alive or dead,
From cursed ground where demon priests would tread,
     Where priests of shadowed horror tread.

But something did descend the temple knoll,
Unseen, unheard, a sickness of the soul,
A subtle poisoned spirit effluence,
That hid beneath the sun-bright eminence,
And spread its psychic tendrils street by street,
Attacking people gently in their sleep,
     Conversing with them in their sleep.

And with those dreams a creeping change ensued,
That through the city harrowing nightmares strewed,
Until the bless’d serenity of night
Was rent with anguished weeping, cries of fright,
And manic glee; then lost, the soul’s sojourn,
As in the stillness hate and fear were born,
     As demons of the mind were born.

No more was night the favored time for sleep,
But to the darkness did their business keep,
And in the safety of the light of day,
They took their needed rest, and dreamless lay,
But evil walked the streets by night and day,
For evil in the hearts of men held sway,
     The nameless from the dark had sway.

Forgotten then the gods that ruled so long,
The sailing ships that plied the lake were gone,
Replaced by galleys pulled by banks of slaves,
The ancient trees were cut, and gardens paved,
And soldiers squads a watchful presence made,
But still the fear that came in daylight stayed,
     And children in their homes, and silent, stayed.

Upon one moonless night a madness came,
And every corner marked with blood and flame,
As savage fighting spread from door to door,
The city seemed against itself to war,
While many sought to flee the city’s doom,
The lurid crimson light, and choking gloom,
     The fire and blood, and smoke filled gloom.

Then down into the turmoil darkness flowed,
Far deeper than the fruits of hatred sowed,
From out the many pillared temple’s door
It poured, and pooled around the rocky tor,
And where the strange etheric vapor rolled,
Therein all lights fell dark, and fires cold,
     The atmosphere turned bitter cold.

And in that darkness frantic terror bloomed,
As many, fleeing late a city doomed,
Were caught, and in the crawling shadows lost,
Devoured in the nightmare holocaust,
Then slowly did unholy silence fall,
And dawning light burn off the evil pall,
     The black and bitter spectral pall.

The city lay in loathsome emptiness,
An age it weathered, falling ruinous,
A vast necropolis of open tombs,
That none dared plunder under sun or moon,
For ever on that high and rocky tor,
The monstrous pillared temple yet loomed o’er,
     That seat of shadow yet loomed o’er.