I like this version *much* better.

[madbaker]

The Love Song of A. Alhazred Azathoth by William Browning Spencer

Let us go then, you and I,
When the star-spawn wake and writhe
Like nightgaunts drunk on blood;
Let us go, beyond the nameless city,
Streets drained of pity,
Following Yog-Sothoth's ancient journey.
Oh, do not say, "No, never!"
Else all your tentacles I'll sever.

In the void the Azathi come and go
Gibbering and all aglow.

The black miasma that enfolds your carapace,
The eldritch light that hisses in your carapace,
Made darkness glitter like a feast of dreams
And brought exalted madness to our schemes
Until we lay enraptured, sated on dead things.

Time there will be beyond Time,
Time to read the Necronomicon at leisure,
Time to devastate a race of heretics
Or fashion some grand galactic seizure
As a sign of our displeasure.

In the void the Azathi come and go
Gibbering and all aglow.

And indeed there will be time
To don my mottled coats of slime.
And some will say, "His cilia have lost their shine."
["His spines," they'll say, "are thin and oscillate."]
They'll think me old, but not an Elder, not a Great.
Still there is time; it's not too late.

For I have heard the worlds go dying,
Heard Time itself unwinding, crying,
And I have measured out my years
In a bar in Sarnath, drinking beers.

And I have known the eyes that skitter
And I have watched the black hordes winter.
Long before the Yith had bodies,
I scavenged Chaos for my dinner.

I should have been cold mandibles
Scuttling across dead R'Lyeh's corpse
Under the heavy, somnambulant sea.

And would it have been worth it?
Not to smite them with a blow but say,
Instead, "You are mistaken. Love is all, yes, all."

No, smiting is my heritage.
I smite, therefore I am.
Between the stars there is always
Thunder without a mouth
And wizen Death full of rage.

I grow old...I grow old...
I shall sheathe my ganglia in mold.

Shall I wear my enemies on strings?
I shall torture them and feed them fetid dreams.
I have heard the hounds of Tindalos, howling as they run.

I do not think they will howl for me.

I have seen them rending the black moon,
Shaking Chaos with their sharp teeth
In Kara-Shehr amid the blighted ruins.

We have drowsed in the blood-red desert
Bound by implacable dreams,
Caressed by Cythonian tongues,
Till Cthulhu's cries wake us and we scream.