Unhappy Far-Off Things
By Lord Dunsany
()
About this ebook
Lord Dunsany
Lord Dunsany was an immensely prolific Anglo-Irish writer of fantasies, novels, dramas, short stories, and poetry. An Irish aristocrat whose peerage stretched back to medieval times, Lord Dunsany is considered one of the earliest and most significant authors of modern fantasy literature. He has been described as a "fantasist's fantasist" and his work has strongly influenced a genre that stretches back to the medieval Romances populated by wizards and dragons and reaches forward to the edge of contemporary science fiction.
Read more from Lord Dunsany
The King of Elfland's Daughter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save For Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Strange Journeys of Colonel Polders: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Kith of the Elf-Folk Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Charwoman's Shadow Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Revolution: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lord Dunsany Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe King of Elfland's Daughter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gods of Pegana Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond the Fields We Know: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Time and the Gods: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Plays of Gods and Men: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The King of Elfland's Daughter Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe King of Elfland's Daughter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Start Lord Dunsany Super Pack Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDon Rodriguez Chronicles of Shadow Valley: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Book of Wonder: 10 Classic Short Story Collections Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Book of Wonder: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tales of War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGods, Men and Ghosts: The Best Supernatural Fiction of Lord Dunsany Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Night at an Inn Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTales of Three Hemispheres Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe King of Elfland's Daughter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tales of Three Hemispheres: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5If Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Unhappy Far-Off Things
Related ebooks
Unhappy Far-Off Things Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnhappy Far-Off Things Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnhappy Far-Off Things Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnhappy Far-Off Things: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wanderings through unknown Austria Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLittle Dorrit Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sights from a Steeple (From "Twice Told Tales") Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBalsamo, the Magician Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe House by the Church-Yard Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Iron Arrow Head or The Buckler Maiden: A Tale of the Northman Invasion Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHills and the Sea Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLittle Dorrit (Centaur Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe House by the Church-Yard Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFar Off Things Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOtto of the Silver Hand Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Old Manse (From "Mosses from an Old Manse") Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ballad of the White Horse Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Wind Bloweth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBalsamo the Magician or the Memoirs of a Physician Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Trumpeter Of Krakow, A Tale Of The Fifteenth Century Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Path to Rome Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTrilby Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Arthur Machen: The Complete Works Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDiary And Notes Of Horace Templeton, Esq. Volume II (of II) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Worn Doorstep Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Woodman: A Romance of the Times of Richard III Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Princess: "Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die." Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTrilby (Musaicum Rediscovered Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsApples from Shinar: A Book of Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMosses from an Old Manse Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
General Fiction For You
The Priory of the Orange Tree Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mythos Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Man Called Ove: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Covenant of Water (Oprah's Book Club) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The City of Dreaming Books Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fellowship Of The Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life of Pi: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Alchemist: A Graphic Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dante's Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The King James Version of the Bible Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It Ends with Us: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shantaram: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Unhoneymooners Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird: Stories Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Meditations: Complete and Unabridged Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ulysses: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rebecca Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Everything's Fine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nettle & Bone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Other Black Girl: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Unhappy Far-Off Things
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Unhappy Far-Off Things - Lord Dunsany
A Dirge Of Victory (Sonnet)
Lift not thy trumpet, Victory, to the sky, Nor through battalions nor by batteries blow, But over hollows full of old wire go, Where among dregs of war the long-dead lie With wasted iron that the guns passed by. When they went eastwards like a tide at flow; There blow thy trumpet that the dead may know, Who waited for thy coming, Victory.
It is not we that have deserved thy wreath, They waited there among the towering weeds. The deep mud burned under the thermite's breath, And winter cracked the bones that no man heeds: Hundreds of nights flamed by: the seasons passed. And thou last come to them at last, at last!
The Cathedral Of Arras
On the great steps of Arras Cathedral I saw a procession, in silence, standing still.
They were in orderly and perfect lines, stirring or swaying slightly: sometimes they bent their heads, sometimes two leaned together, but for the most part they were motionless. It was the time when the fashion is just changing and some were newly all in shining yellow, while others still wore green.
I went up the steps amongst them, the only human thing, for men and women worship no more in Arras Cathedral, and the trees have come instead; little humble things, all less than four years old, in great numbers thronging the steps processionally, and growing in perfect rows just where step meets step. They have come to Arras with the wind and the rain; which enter the aisles together whenever they will, and go wherever man went; they have such a reverent air, the young limes on the three flights of steps, that you would say they did not know that Arras Cathedral was fallen on evil days, that they did not know they looked on ruin and vast disaster, but thought that these great walls open to stars and sun were the natural and fitting place for the worship of little weeds.
Behind them the shattered houses of Arras seemed to cluster about the cathedral as, one might fancy easily, hurt and frightened children, so wistful are their gaping windows and old, grey empty gables, so melancholy and puzzled. They are more like a little old people come upon trouble, gazing at their great elder companion and not knowing what to do.
But the facts of Arras are sadder than a poet's most tragic fancies. In the western front of Arras Cathedral stand eight pillars rising from the ground; above them stood four more. Of the four upper pillars the two on the left are gone, swept away by shells from the north: and a shell has passed through the neck of one of the two that is left, just as a bullet might go through a daffodil's stem.
The left-hand corner of that western wall has been caught from the north, by some tremendous shell which has torn the whole corner down in a mound of stone: and still the walls have stood.
I went in through the western doorway. All along the nave lay a long heap of white stones, with grass and weeds on the top, and a little trodden path over the grass and weeds. This is all that remained of the roof of Arras Cathedral and of any chairs or pews there may have been in the nave, or anything that may have hung above them. It was all down but one slender arch that crossed the nave just at the transept; it stood out against the sky, and all who saw it wondered how it stood.
In the southern aisle panes of green glass, in twisted frame of lead, here and there