Solomon Kane's Homecoming

Music written and performed by Paul Berrow, Michael Berrow, and Jake Roberts.
Read by Paul Blake.
Solomon Kane's Homecoming
The white gulls wheeled above the cliffs, the air was slashed with foam,
The long tides moaned along the strand when Solomon Kane came home.
He walked in silence strange and dazed through the little Devon town,
His gaze, like a ghost's come back to life, roamed up the streets and down.
The people followed wonderingly to mark his spectral stare,
And in the tavern silently they thronged about him there.
He heard as a man hears in a dream the worn old rafters creak,
And Solomon lifted his drinking-jack and spoke as a ghost might speak:
"There sat Sir Richard Grenville once; in smoke and flame he passed.
"And we were one to fifty-three, but we gave them blast for blast.
"From crimson dawn to crimson dawn, we held the Dons at bay.
"The dead lay littered on our decks, our masts were shot away.
"We beat them back with broken blades, till crimson ran the tide;
"Death thundered in the cannon smoke when Richard Grenville died.
"We should have blown her hull apart and sunk beneath the Main."
The people saw upon his wrist the scars of the racks of Spain.
"Where is Bess?" said Solomon Kane. "Woe that I caused her tears."
"In the quiet churchyard by the sea she has slept these seven years."
The sea-wind moaned at the window-pane, and Solomon bowed his head.
"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and the fairest fade," he said.
His eyes were mystical deep pools that drowned unearthly things,
And Solomon lifted up his head and spoke of his wanderings.
"Mine eyes have looked on sorcery in dark and naked lands,
"Horror born of the jungle gloom and death on the pathless sands.
"And I have known a deathless queen in a city old as Death,
"Where towering pyramids of skulls her glory witnesseth.
"Her kiss was like an adder's fang, with the sweetness Lilith had,
"And her red-eyed vassals howled for blood in that City of the Mad.
"And I have slain a vampire shape that sucked a black king white,
"And I have roamed through grisly hills where dead men walked at night.
"And I have seen heads fall like fruit in a slaver's barracoon,
"And I have seen winged demons fly all naked in the moon.
"My feet are weary of wandering and age comes on apace;
"I fain would dwell in Devon now, forever in my place."
The howling of the ocean pack came whistling down the gale,
And Solomon Kane threw up his head like a hound that sniffs the trail.
A-down the wind like a running pack the hounds of the ocean bayed,
And Solomon Kane rose up again and girt his Spanish blade.
In his strange cold eyes a vagrant gleam grew wayward and blind and bright,
And Solomon put the people by and went into the night.
A wild moon rode the wild white clouds, the waves in white crests flowed,
When Solomon Kane went forth again and no man knew his road.
They glimpsed him etched against the moon, where clouds on hilltop thinned;
They heard an eery echoed call that whistled down the wind.
- Robert E. Howard
This is a fan made video. All rights belong to their respective owners.

[@davidgustafson7334]

Robert E. Howard was a terrific poet, and this is a wonderful reading of one of his best.

[@SyggNielsen-jg3hf]

Bustin' caps in the jungle and runnin' through them knignogs

[@jimmykicker7775]

This is the most beautiful thing I have heard in a long time

[@stephenlehren6258]

I will always love this poem.

[@nicholassudov2299]

Text, performance, music and visual - all wonderful! Thank you.

[@tobypack6328]

Simple outstanding!

[@panagiotiskostastheoktisto6709]

I love hearing people talking about what we don’t know lol

[@serapsirising232]

Just got done reading this in the Del Rey collection "The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane". I'm stunned at what an evocative writer Robert E. Howard was. And this reading was great as well! I really enjoyed the production value you gave it with the images and background ambiance.

[@BrentDelong1253]

I have that book also. I was just explaining to my wife what pulp fiction was and about Howard and Kane. I pulled up two poems that I remembered from years ago. I think I may pull my old book out again.

[@crusader2112]

I got that book for my birthday. This final poem was the perfect ending for Kane. 👍 Peace ✌🏻

[@coldblower1]

superb

[@abzalamangos2049]

Brilliant!

[@bruggeman672]

Love the Solomon Kane stories

[@carlorossi1142]

Great!

[@panagiotiskostastheoktisto6709]

Very nice poem so judge mental though judge and be judged I have no enemy here or in after I condemn no one on hear say or feelings I fictionalized your thought and go my own way

[@BrentDelong1253]

I always wondered how and where Kane met his end.

[@crusader2112]

I like to think he made it home to Britain and built a cabin in a quiet place of the isles and lived out his days, occasionally taking up his sword to help the locals. But that’s just me.

[@Marianne14teen]

Witchcraft and sorcery!

[@jesussavior6383]

hi