CHAPTER 16 (Poetry from Captain Hotshot to Commander Scorpion)

Captain Hotshot, in one of his fouler moods, happened upon the exact set of words and thoughts that would explain his feelings of total relapse. Since he was responding to a question posed to him by Commander Scorpion, he deigned to send this off to the commander in the hope that with the question answered, they could move on to the next level of the game.

Slowly close your eyes and picture if you will a far off world, a minor
planet of a minor system in the reaches of a third class spiral nebula, so
dim that it survives only by the three moons that circle it radiating a dim
glow from it's primary, a very nondescript class G star. A frightful place
really, with so little luminosity that everything is gray, sometimes slate
gray, sometimes dark gray and sometimes a kind of chalky gray only seen when
two of the moons are in the sky at the same time as the primary. This is a
world that radiates gloom, a gloom so thick it is palpable... Hereon lies
the castle Gormenghast, a monstrous pile of granite, stretching out along
uneven lines, unplanned, its architecture more like a mountain under seige
by time and the weather, which it has and is for 72 generations of Groan's.
Yet, there has been a birth, an heir, one Titus by name and in his honor
this ode has been composed by his father.

Gormenghast
By the 7th Earl of Groan

Linger now with me, thou Beauty,
On the sharp archaic shore.
Surely 'tis a wastrel's duty
And the gods could ask no more.
If you lingerest when I linger,
If thou tread'st the stones I tread,
Thou wilt stay my spirit's hunger
And dispel the dreams I dread.

Come thou, love, my own, my only,
Through the battlements of Groan;
Lingering becomes so lonely
When one lingers on one's own.
I have lingered in the cloisters
Of the Northern Wing at night,
As the sky unclasped its oysters
On the midnight pearls of light.

For the long remorseless shadows
Chilled me with exquisite fear.
I have lingered in cold meadows
Through a month of rain, my dear.
Come, my Love, my sweet, my Only,
Through the parapets of Groan.
Lingering can be very lonely
When one lingers on one's own.

In dark alcoves I have lingered
Conscious of dead dynasties.
I have lingered in blue cellars
And in hollow trunks of trees.
Many a traveller through moonlight
Passing by a winding stair
Or a cold and crumbling archway
Has been shocked to see me there.

I have longed for thee, my Only,
Hark! the footsteps of the Groan!L
ingering is so very lonely
When one lingers all alone.
As I linger all alone!
Will You come with me, and linger?
And discourse with me of those
Secret things the mystic finger
Points to, but will not disclose?

When I'm all alone, my glory,
Always fades, because I find
Being lonely drives the splendour
Of my vision from my mind.
Come, Oh, come, MY own! my Only!
Through the Gormenghast of Groan.
Lingering has become so lonely
When one lingers all alone.

(excerpted from the book Gormenghast by Norman Peake)