To Virgil Finlay

In dim abysses pulse the shapes of night, Hungry and hideous, with strange miters crowned; Black pinions beating in fantastic flight From orb to orb through soulless voids profound. None dares to name the cosmos whence they course, Or guess the look on each amorphous face, Or speak the words that with resistless force Would draw them from the halls of outer space.

Yet here upon a page our frightened glance Finds monstrous forms no human eye should see; Hints of those blasphemies whose countenance Spreads death and madness through infinity. What limner he who braves black gulfs alone And lives to wake their alien horrors known?