A VISIT FROM ST. ICHOROUS
(Apologies to Clement C. Moore)
‘Twas the night before Roodmas, and all through Kadath
Not a creature was stirring, fearing Cthulhu’s wrath;
And corpses were hung by their lips and their hair,
In hopes that St. Ichorous soon would be there;
The ghouls were nestled all snug in their graves,
And the cultists were returning from a long midnight’s rave;
And Shub in her alcove, and I in my shroud,
Lay dead but dreaming, and snoring aloud,
When out in the sea there arose such a yowling,
I arose with a scream to butcher who’s howling.
Away to the window I flew like a bat,
(not so easy, with this hibernation fat).
The moon was gibbous, as viewed from the deeps,
Gave the luster of mid-day to slumbering creeps,
When what my ichthyic eyes did see,
But a rotted sleigh drawn by eight tiny Byakhee,
With an inhuman driver, so slimy and slick,
I knew in a moment that it must be St. Ick.
More rapid than Shantaks his coursers they came,
And he meeped, and glibbered, and called them by name:
Now Xrasher! Now, Hrancer! Now Fhtancer and Glixen!
On Flomet! On Yrupid! On, Llonder and Qzixen!
To the top of the tower! To the top of the wall!
Now flap away! Flap away! Flap away all!
As old houses before Ithaqua fly,
When they meet with the Old One, mount to the sky,
So up to the crypt-top the coursers they flew,
With a sleigh full of hellspawn, and St. Ichorous too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The clomping and pawing of a huge cloven hoof.
As I drew in my paw, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Ichorous came with a bound.
His long tentacles writhed, made me feel queasy,
Oozed eldritch ichor, not tarry but greasy;
A sack full of limbs he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a grave-robber just opening his pack.
His wings – how they fluttered! His face, doglike muzzled!
And stained brilliant scarlet from blood cheerfully guzzled!
His spittle foamed and dripped crimson down on his chin,
(Which, I might add, was bearded with fins);
The stump of an arm he held tight in his teeth,
Sulf’rous fumes circled his head like an alien wreath;
He had a sallow face and a corpulent belly,
Which bounced, when he moved, like sick Shoggoth-jelly.
He was rotten and twisted, a right hellish old freak,
And I screamed when I saw him as my bladder did leak;
The glint in his eye and a twist of his head,
Told me I had all the cosmos to dread;
He snarled not a word, but went straight to his work,
Devoured the corpses; then turned with a jerk,
And laying a talon aside of his nose,
And flipping “the bird” up the chimney he rose;
He flew to his sleigh, to his team gave a yell,
And away they all flew like a bat out of Hell.
But I heard him exclaim, as he flew his non-Euclid toboggan,
"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.”
