There is snow on the ground,
And the valleys are cold,
And a midnight profound
Blackly squats o’er the wold;
But a light on the hilltops half-seen hints of feastings un-hallowed and old.

There is death in the clouds,
There is fear in the night,
For the dead in their shrouds
Hail the sin’s turning flight.
And chant wild in the woods as they dance round a Yule-altar fungous and white.

To no gale of Earth’s kind
Sways the forest of oak,
Where the sick boughs entwined
By mad mistletoes choke,
For these pow’rs are the pow’rs of the dark, from the graves of the lost Druid-folk.

Later re-titiled Festival, Yule Horror by H. P. Lovecraft was first published in the December 1926 edition of Weird Tales.

Related Posts:

– “Night-Gaunts” by H. P. Lovecraft

– “Her Strong Enchantments Failing” by A.E. Houseman

– “Dead Man’s Hate” by Robert E. Howard

Categories: Holiday of Horrors 2013, Poetry and Prose

Tags: Christmas, H. P. Lovecraft, Holiday of Horrors, horror, Lovecraft, poetry, spooky poetry, Virgil Finlay, Weird Tales, winter, Yule