Romance (Howard)

by Robert Ervin Howard

For works with similar titles, see Romance.

I am king of all the Ages
I am ruler of the stars
I am master of Time's pages
And I mock at chain and bars.
Now, as when I sailed the world
Ere the galley's sails were furled
And the barnacles had crusted on their spars.

I am strife, I am Life,
I am mistress, I am wife!
I am wilder than the sea wind, I am fiercer than the fire!
I am tale and song and fable, I am Akkad, I am Babel,
I am Calno, I am Carthage, I am Tyre!

For I walked the streets of Gaza
   when the world was wild and young,
And I reveled in Carchemish when the golden minstrels sung;
All the world-road was my path, as I sang the songs of Gath
Or trod the streets of Nineveh where harlots roses flung.

I swam the wide Euphrates
   where it wanders through the plain
And I saw the dawn come flaming over Tyre.
I walked the roads of Ammon
   when the hills were veiled in rain,
And I watched the stars anon from the walls of Askalon
And I rose the plains of Palestine beneath the dawning's fire
When the leaves upon the trees danced
   and fluttered in the breeze
And a slim girl of Juda went singing to a lyre.