Can I at least get a response to this one? Poems by Robert E. Howard...

3: Miser's Gold, The Ghost Kings.

Miser’s Gold

"Nay, have no fear. The man was blind," said she.
"How could he see ’twas we that took his gold?
"The devil, man! I thought you were bold!"
"This is a chancy business!" muttered he,
"And we’ll be lucky if we get to sea.
"The fellow deals with demons, I’ve been told."
"Let’s open the chest, shut up and take a hold."
Then silence as they knocked the hinges free.

A glint of silver and a sheen of jade –
Two strange gems gleaming from a silken fold –
Rare plunder – gods, was that a hidden blade?
A scream, a curse, two bodies stark and cold.
With jewel eyes above them crawled and swayed
The serpent left to watch the miser’s gold.



The Ghost Kings

The ghost kings are marching; the midnight knows their tread,
From the distant, stealthy planets of the dim, unstable dead;
There are whisperings on the night-winds and the shuddering stars have fled.

A ghostly trumpet echoes from a barren mountainhead;
Through the fen the wandering witch-lights gleam like phantom arrows sped;
There is silence in the valleys and the moon is rising red.

The ghost kings are marching down the ages' dusty maze;
The unseen feet are tramping through the moonlight's pallid haze,
Down the hollow clanging stairways of a million yesterdays.

The ghost kings are marching, where the vague moon-vapor creeps,
While the night-wind to their coming, like a thund'rous herald sweeps;
They are clad in ancient grandeur, but the world, unheeding, sleeps.

Kings...

Thanks for sharing! I will have to check out some more of his works. Is he still living? I am not familiar with him at all...what can you tell me about him?

He did quite few other classic sword and sorcery stories too, and was good friends with H.P. Lovecraft, of Cthulu mythos fame.

Unfortunately, Howard was a bigot, and it's clearly evident in many of his stories. If you read them, try to ignore it or realize it was a case of the primitive attitudes of the early 20th century.

However, Howard shot himself in the head in '36 (depressed by the impending death of his mother) before he could do anything stupid like support Hitler.

Conan's still popular, of course. A net acquaintance of mine has most of Howard's poems hosted here:

http://students.oamk.fi/~m4kumi00/visions.html

Quite a few of Howard's works (including essays and letters) are over at Wikisource, but some of them have had the spelling mangled in the uploading process.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Robert_E._Howard

Edit: Ghost Kings is one of my favorite poems, so I'm glad you liked it.

I was reading it was Aragorn bringing back the dead kings/warriors to fight for Middle Earth in LOTR...hope you don't find that too trite and culturally kitchsy! *lol*

I really did like the poem on its own too though...always had great admiration for people who can write poetry, particularly rhyming poetry, that does not sound like greeting card verse...