Fungi from Yuggoth - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 6

VI. The Lamp

We found the lamp inside those hollow cliffsWhose chiseled sign no priest in Thebes could read,And from whose caverns frightened hieroglyphsWarned every living creature of earth's breed.No more was there – just that one brazen bowlWith traces of a curious oil within;Fretted with some obscurely patterned scroll,And symbols hinting vaguely of strange sin.Little the fears of forty centuries meantTo us as we bore off our slender spoil,And when we scanned it in our darkened tentWe struck a match to test the ancient oil.It blazed – great God!… But the vast shapes we sawIn that mad flash have seared our lives with awe.