Polaris

by H. P. Lovecraft

　　

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Into the North Window of my chamber glows the Pole Star with uncanny light.All through the long hellish hours of blackness it shines there. And in theautumn of the year, when the winds from the north curse and whine, and thered-leaved trees of the swamp mutter things to one another in the small hours ofthe morning under the horned waning moon, I sit by the casement and watch thatstar. Down from the heights reels the glittering Cassiopeia as the hours wearon, while Charles' Wain lumbers up from behind the vapour-soaked swamp treesthat sway in the night wind. Just before dawn Arcturus winks ruddily from abovethe cemetary on the low hillock, and Coma Berenices shimmers weirdly afar off inthe mysterious east; but still the Pole Star leers down from the same place inthe black vault, winking hideously like an insane watching eye which strives toconvey some strange message, yet recalls nothing save that it once had a messageto convey. Sometimes, when it is cloudy, I can sleep.Well do I remember the night of the great Aurora, when over the swamp playedthe shocking corruscations of the daemon light. After the beam came clouds, andthen I slept. And it was under a horned waning moon that I saw the city for the firsttime. Still and somnolent did it lie, on a strange plateau in a hollow betweenstrange peaks. Of ghastly marble were its walls and its towers, its columns,domes, and pavements. In the marble streets were marble pillars, the upper partsof which were carven into the images of grave bearded men. The air was warm andstirred not. And overhead, scarce ten degrees from the zenith, glowed thatwatching Pole Star. Long did I gaze on the city, but the day came not. When thered Aldebaran, which blinked low in the sky but never set, had crawled a quarterof the way around the horizon, I saw light and motion in the houses and thestreets. Forms strangely robed, but at once noble and familiar, walked abroadand under the horned waning moon men talked wisdom in a tongue which Iunderstood, though it was unlike any language which I had ever known. And whenthe red Aldebaran had crawled more than half-way around the horizon, there wereagain darkness and silence.When I awaked, I was not as I had been. Upon my memory was graven the visionof the city, and within my soul had arisen another and vaguer recollection, ofwhose nature I was not then certain. Thereafter, on the cloudy nights when Icould not sleep, I saw the city often; sometimes under the hot, yellow rays of asun which did not set, but which wheeled low in the horizon. And on the clearnights the Pole Star leered as never before.Gradually I came to wonder what might be my place in that city on thestrange plateau betwixt strange peaks. At first content to view the scene as anall-observant uncorporeal presence, I now desired to define my relation to it,and to speak my mind amongst the grave men who conversed each day in the publicsquares. I said to myself, "This is no dream, for by what means can I prove thegreater reality of that other life in the house of stone and brick south of thesinister swamp and the cemetery on the low hillock, where the Pole Star peepsinto my north window each night?"One night as I listened to the discourses in the large square containingmany statues, I felt a change; and perceived that I had at last a bodily form.Nor was I a stranger in the streets of Olathoe, which lies on the plateau ofSarkia, betwixt the peaks of Noton and Kadiphonek. It was my friend Alos whospoke, and his speech was one that pleased my soul, for it was the speech of atrue man and patriot. That night had the news come of Daikos' fall, and of theadvance of the Inutos; squat, hellish yellow fiends who five years ago hadappeared out of the unknown west to ravage the confines of our kingdom, and tobesiege many of our towns. Having taken the fortified places at the foot of themountains, their way now lay open to the plateau, unless every citizen couldresist with the strength of ten men. For the squat creatures were mighty in thearts of war, and knew not the scruples of honour which held back our tall,grey-eyed men of Lomar from ruthless conquest.Alos, my friend, was commander of all the forces on the plateau, and in himlay the last hope of our country. On this occasion he spoke of the perils to befaced and exhorted the men of Olathoe, bravest of the Lomarians, to sustain thetraditions of their ancestors, who when forced to move southward from Zobnabefore the advance of the great ice sheet (even as our descendents must some dayflee from the land of Lomar) valiently and victoriously swept aside the hairly,long-armed, cannibal Gnophkehs that stood in their way. To me Alos denied thewarriors part, for I was feeble and given to strange faintings when subjected tostress and hardships. But my eyes were the keenest in the city, despite the longhours I gave each day to the study of the Pnakotic manuscripts and the wisdom ofthe Zobnarian Fathers; so my friend, desiring not to doom me to inaction,rewarded me with that duty which was second to nothing in importance. To thewatchtower of Thapnen he sent me, there to serve as the eyes of our army. Shouldthe Inutos attempt to gain the citadel by the narrow pass behind the peak Notonand thereby surprise the garrison, I was to give the signal of fire which wouldwarn the waiting soldiers and save the town from immediate disaster.Alone I mounted the tower, for every man of stout body was needed in thepasses below. My brain was sore dazed with excitement and fatigue, for I had notslept in many days; yet was my purpose firm, for I loved my native land ofLomar, and the marble city Olathoe that lies betwixt the peaks Noton andKadiphonek.But as I stood in the tower's topmost chamber, I beheld the horned waningmoon, red and sinister, quivering through the vapours that hovered over thedistant valley of Banof. And through an opening in the roof glittered the palePole Star, fluttering as if alive, and leering like a fiend and tempter.Methought its spirit whispered evil counsel, soothing me to traitoroussomnolence with a damnable rhythmical promise which it repeated over and over:Slumber, watcher, till the spheres,

　　Six and twenty thousand years

　　Have revolv'd, and I return

　　To the spot where now I burn.

　　Other stars anon shall rise

　　To the axis of the skies;

　　Stars that soothe and stars that bless

　　With a sweet forgetfulness:

　　Only when my round is o'er

　　Shall the past disturb thy door.Vainly did I struggle with my drowsiness, seeking to connect these strangewords with some lore of the skies which I had learnt from the Pnakoticmanuscripts. My head, heavy and reeling, drooped to my breast, and when next Ilooked up it was in a dream, with the Pole Star grinning at me through a windowfrom over the horrible and swaying trees of a dream swamp. And I am stilldreaming.In my shame and despair I sometimes scream frantically, begging thedream-creatures around me to waken me ere the Inutos steal up the pass behindthe peak Noton and take the citadel by surprise; but these creatures aredaemons, for they laugh at me and tell me I am not dreaming. They mock me whilstI sleep, and whilst the squat yellow foe may be creeping silently upon us. Ihave failed in my duties and betrayed the marble city of Olathoe; I have provenfalse to Alos, my friend and commander. But still these shadows of my dreamsderide me. They say there is no land of Lomar, save in my nocturnal imaginings;that in these realms where the Pole Star shines high, and red Aldebaran crawlslow around the horizon, there has been naught save ice and snow for thousands ofyears of years, and never a man save squat, yellow creatures, blighted by thecold, called "Esquimaux."And as I writhe in my guilty agony, frantic to save the city whose perilevery moment grows, and vainly striving to shake off this unnatural dream of ahouse of stone and brick south of a sinister swamp and a cemetery on a lowhillock, the Pole Star, evil and monstrous, leers down from the black vault,winking hideously like an insane watching eye which strives to convey somemessage, yet recalls nothing save that it once had a message to convey.

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