Wiser than thought, more intimate than breath, More ancient than the plated rust of Mars, Beyond the light geometry of stars, Yet closer than our web of life and death— This sergeant of the executing squads Calls night from dawn no less than dawn from night; This groom that teams the wolf and hare for flight Is obstetrician at the birth of gods. Around this crimson source of human fears, Where rites and myths have built their scaffoldings, With smoke of hecatombs upon her wings, And chased by shadows of the coming years, Our planet-moth tries blindly to survive Her spinning vertigo as fugitive.

But stronger than its terror is the deep Allurement, primary to our blood, which holds Safety and warmth in unimpassioned folds, Night and the candle-quietness of sleep; With the day's bugles silent, when the will, That feeds the tumult of our natures, rests Along the broken arteries of its quests. So, let the yellowing world revolve until Old Demogorgon's last expatriate On this exotic hearth leans forth to claim Promethean virtue from a dying flame, His fingers tapered—less to mitigate The chilling accident of his sojourn Than to invoke his ultimate return.