“An Echo From the Iron Harp” Robert E. Howard

Shadows and echoes haunt my dreams with dim and subtle pain, 

With the faded fire of a lost desire, like a ghost on a moonlit plain. 

In the pallid mist of death-like sleep she comes again to me: 

I see the gleam of her golden hair and her eyes like the deep grey sea. 

* * * * * * * * * * 

We came from the North as the spume is blown when the blue tide billows down; 

The kings of the South were overthrown in ruin of camp and town. 

Shrine and temple we dashed to dust, and roared in the dead gods' ears; 

We saw the fall of the kings of Gaul, and shattered the Belgae spears.

And South we rolled like a drifting cloud, like a wind that bends the grass, 

But we smote in vain on the gates of Spain for our own kin held the Pass. 

Then again we turned where the watch-fires burned to mark the lines of Rome, 

And fire and tower and standard sank as ships that die in foam.

[from “An Echo From the Iron Harp”; to read the complete poem, see The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard , p. 7;Night Images , p. 48 and Robert E. Howard Selected Poems , p. 190]