Robert E. Howard
MEN OF THE SHADOWS
From the dim red dawn of Creation
From the fogs of timeless Time
Came we, the first great nation,
First on the upward climb.
Savage, untaught, unknowing,
Groping through primitive night,
Yet faintly catching the glowing,
The hint of the coming Light.
Ranging o'er lands untravelled,
Sailing o'er seas unknown
Mazed by world-puzzles unravelled,
Building our land-marks of stone.
Vaguely grasping at glory,
Gazing beyond our ken
Mutely the ages' story
Rearing on plain and fen.
See, how the Lost Fire smolders,
We are one with the eons' must.
Nations have trod our shoulders,
Trampling us into the dust.
We, the first of the races,
Linking the Old and New -
Look, where the sea-cloud spaces
Mingle with ocean-blue.
So we have mingled with ages,
And the world-wind our ashes stirs,
Vanished are we from Time's pages,
Our memory? Wind in the firs.
Stonehenge of long-gone glory,
Sombre and lone in the night,
Murmur the age-old story
How we kindled the first of the Light.
Speak night-winds, of man's creation,
Whisper o'er crag and fen,
The tale of the first great nation,
The last of the Stone Age men.