Customer Reviews

Eyes of the God: The Weird Fiction and Poetry of R. H. Barlow

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Barlow's best poetry is terrific. His tributes to Lovecraft are quite moving. The stories in this book, however, are juvenalia and for the most part not very good. The one exception is "The Night Ocean," a subtle and memorable fantasy.

This slim volume of 211 pages collects the weird fiction and poetry of Robert H. Barlow (1918-1951), who as a teenager became one of H. P. Lovecraft's finest friends and was chosen by Lovecraft to be his literary executor. Many of the items in this book have not been reprinted since their initial appearance in amateur magazines of the era. The poetry is especially wonderful. Here is one of Barlow's poems in memory of Lovecraft:

H. P. L.

I. March 1937
There is engrained in us the twisted truth
Which, using as symbol the change from worms to wings
Or slain year's birth ensuing eager springs,
Makes parables to silence weeping with.
Since it distracts the empty hand of grief,
I set the scentless blossom in my soil
And seek to mend with slow uneager toil
The ravaged plot, the broken stem and leaf,

And know I shall not fail, though wandering far
To see the gulf which bounds my yesterday.
Since Sorrow's word must hastily be drowned . . .
They prate of Somewhere, call you highly crowned
With Christian wreathes throughout throughout eternal day.
You, who are crowned with Death's tremendous star!

II. March 1938
And now a year recedes into the wash
Of aimless centuries, and now my eyes
Perceive the pattern of their fall and rise,
Yet memories are the heart's incessant lash
Like rain upon the cloudy ocean hurled.
All past and future hours emerge as one--
Twin stars which swung about a perished sun
In some far reach of night beyond the world.

What thing makes gulls defy the pushing breeze
Or iris bloom, what knife of silver flame
Was bright in you, a year can scarcely tame.
It flares up yet beyond the shipless seas.
But I upon this beach, perplexed by night,
Dare not advance bereft of your keen sight.

Many of the stories were written when Barlow was very young, and six of them were highly polished by H. P. Lovecraft and may be considered Lovecraft-Barlow collaborations. One would have liked to have seen the Barlow essays that he penned on H. P. Lovecraft and others. He wrote a splendid introduction for the 1944 Arkham House collection of weird fiction by Henry S. Whitehead, JUMBEE AND OTHER UNCANNY TALES. This is a wonderful book nonetheless, and I am grateful to Hippocampus Press for its publication.