1917 Polaris

     In the wake of "Dagon", Lovecraft wrote two stories which fit more comfortably as humor/satire, rather than "weird fiction": "A Reminiscence of Dr. Samuel Johnson" and "Sweet Ermengarde". These short tales are both worth a brief mention here because they record the earliest appearances of some stylistic devices later to be found in Lovecraft's horror fiction.

     "Polaris" follows, after which is "The Green Meadow", a short scene based on a dream as related by Winifred V. Jackson and written around the same period.

A Reminiscence of Dr. Samuel Johnson
Written in 1917, published in The United Amateur (1917.11)
(Art: Virgil Finlay)
From Dr. Armitage's Notes:
     In this story, the narrator (presented as Lovecraft himself) confides to the reader that he was not born in 1890 (as is officially recorded), but actually in 1690, and is therefore 228 years old. He then recounts sardonically-tinged memories of his encounters with a witty literary circle in the late 18th century, among them the titular, acerbic Dr. Samuel Johnson. Although it's not really a "weird tale" (aside from the narrator's age), it does give Lovecraft the opportunity to practice writing in the voice of someone not quite "of this time". In the future, Lovecraft would happily employ various kinds of antiquated vocabulary to indicate a "man out of the past", or phonetically create "rustic dialogue" to evoke local (or ethnic) color.
Essential Saltes:
     On my asking him what he thought of my favourable Notice of his Dictionary in The Londoner, my periodical Paper, he said: "Sir, I possess no Recollection of having perus’d your Paper, and have not a great Interest in the Opinions of the less thoughtful Part of Mankind." Being more than a little piqued at the Incivility of one whose Celebrity made me solicitous of his Approbation, I ventur’d to retaliate in kind, and told him, I was surpris’d that a Man of Sense shou’d judge the Thoughtfulness of one whose Productions he admitted never having read. "Why, Sir," reply’d Johnson, "I do not require to become familiar with a Man’s Writings in order to estimate the Superficiality of his Attainments, when he plainly shews it by his Eagerness to mention his own Productions in the first Question he puts to me." Having thus become Friends, we convers’d on many Matters.
Read it here.
Sweet Ermengarde
Written (probably around) 1917, published in the Arkham House collection Beyond The Wall of Sleep, 1943.

From Dr. Armitage's Notes:
     This odd item is a kind of tongue-in-cheek satire on silent-movie-era heroes, heroines, and mustache-twirling villains, complete with "stage directions". The typical elements of a domestic melodrama are all ticked off, including a romantic struggle, whimsical miscommunications, mixed up identities, a housing foreclosure, and a happy ending. Like "Dr Samuel Johnson", this piece has no true horror elements, but Lovecraft further develops his skill as a wry humorist, and this straight-faced tone would be very useful when later writing the six "Herbert West - Reanimator" chapters for Home Brew (a humor magazine) a few years later.
Essential Saltes:
     "She must be mine!" sternly snapped the sinister ’squire. "I will make her love me—none shall resist my will! Either she becomes muh wife or the old homestead goes!" And with a sneer and flick of his riding-crop ’Squire Hardman strode out into the night.
Read it here.


Polaris
Written in the first half of 1918, published in The Philosopher (1920.12), and then eventually Weird Tales (1937.12)
"...still the Pole Star leers down from the same place in the black vault, winking hideously like an insane watching eye which strives to convey some strange message..."
Northern Hemisphere star trail rotating around Polaris.
(photo Ashley Dace, treatment EC)
Opening Statement:
     Into the north window of my chamber glows the Pole Star with uncanny light. All through the long hellish hours of blackness it shines there.
Setting (from Lovecraft's letter describing the inspiration for "Polaris"):
     ...a strange dream of a strange city - a city of many palaces and gilded domes, lying in a hollow betwixt ranges of grey, horrible hills. There was not a soul in this vast region of stone-paved streets and marble walls and columns, and the numerous statues in the public places were of strange bearded men in robes the like whereof I have never seen before or since...
What in Brown Jenkin's Name..?
     The narrator dreams that he is an ancient wall-guard, mesmerized by the blinking North Star. The star hints that he may be reincarnated into the future-present.
Synopsis:
     The narrator spends his nights gazing on Polaris, the Pole star. One night, after an unusual aurora, he dreams of the marble city Olathoë, whose inhabitants speak a strange tongue (which the dreamer nevertheless understands). Eventually, he dreams that he is a native of the city, and that his people are at war with the hostile Inutos. He is assigned to stand guard on the barrier wall, and to sound an alert if the Inutos approach. However, the Polaris star begins to whisper an eerie chant, whose lyrics predict a slumber which will last until Polaris returns to its same position in the night sky, 26,000 years later. Lulled asleep (within the dream), the narrator fails to alert the people of Olathoë to the approaching Inutos. He wakes up in the present, disturbed and feeling guilty, and not sure if his waking life is real or a dream.
(From Lord Dunsany's 'The Gods of Pegana', artwork Sidney Sime 1906.)
From Dr. Armitage's Notes:
     In contrast to the lighter fare of "Johnson" and "Ermengarde", Lovecraft here turns towards poetic fantasy (possibly influenced by Edgar Allan Poe, as per ST Joshi's analysis). In a bit of stylistic presentiment, this story has a style which is often labelled as "Dunsanian", even though Lovecraft would not actually encounter Lord Dunsany's fantasy fiction until after completing this piece. 
     "Polaris" is the first of Lovecraft's tales to revolve around a dream journey, and this concept of a Dream Quest would be revisited enough times that his Dreamlands tales are often considered to be a parallel strand to his horror mythos. "Polaris" begins to fill in some of the geography of the Dreamlands/Dream Lands, and these places would be visited in greater detail in later Dream-Quests. 
     This story also displays Lovecraft's interest in astronomy, although later he would be a bit less detailed (thankfully) in his stellar minutiae. However, even at this early juncture, the stars are already taking on a menacing role in Lovecraft's universe (as opposed to one of a "guiding light"). In the future, this sentiment of human insignificance beneath "leering" stars would develop into a full-blown science fiction cosmology.
     As one can see from the above links, "Polaris" anticipates many aspects of the "mythos" to come.
"The City of Never" (Sidney Sime for The Book of Wonder)
Essential Saltes:
     And through an opening in the roof glittered the pale Pole Star, fluttering as if alive, and leering like a fiend and tempter. Methought its spirit whispered evil counsel, soothing me to traitorous somnolence with a damnable rhythmical promise which it repeated over and over:  
"Slumber, watcher, till the spheres
Six and twenty thousand years
Have revolv’d, and I return
To the spot where now I burn.
Other stars anon shall rise
To the axis of the skies;
Stars that soothe and stars that bless
With a sweet forgetfulness:
Only when my round is o’er
Shall the past disturb thy door."
The Horrible Conclusion:
     And as I writhe in my guilty agony, frantic to save the city whose peril every moment grows, and vainly striving to shake off this unnatural dream of a house of stone and brick south of a sinister swamp and a cemetery on a low hillock; the Pole Star, evil and monstrous, leers down from the black vault, winking hideously like an insane watching eye which strives to convey some strange message, yet recalls nothing save that it once had a message to convey.
Sword of Gesar Khan by Nicholas Roerich, 1932
(In later years, Lovecraft became a fan of Roerich's work after visiting the Roerich Museum in NYC)
Read it here.

The Green Meadow
Based on a dream as related by Winifred V. Jackson
Written 1918-19, published in The Vagrant (1927, Spring)

Opening Statement:
     The following very singular narrative, or record of impressions, was discovered under circumstances so extraordinary that they deserve careful description.. 
     "IT was a narrow place, and I was alone."
Synopsis:
     A book is discovered embedded inside a meteorite, recently fallen from the sky. The book is made of an alien substance and written in classical Greek. The contents are translated and related as follows:
     The narrator finds himself by a strange forest, and senses some kind of malevolent intent beyond the visible scenery. The small plot of land he stands on suddenly breaks off and floats down a river. Behind him, he sees the forest and the sky engage in some kind of shadowy conflict. The narrator then hears some chanting, which reminds him of an Egyptian book from the past. Nearing the "Green Meadow" and the source of the chanting, he comes to a sudden revelation and remembers his true circumstances (although he is unable to describe them to the reader). He mentions an infinite cycle of futures for men like himself. He also mentions the city Stethelos ahead of him, "where young men are infinitely old".
(Study of scene decoration for 'The Rite of Spring' Nicholas Roerich, 1944)
From Dr. Armitage's Notes:
     This tale has a strange hybrid nature, having an H.G. Wells-style "scienti-fiction" opening, followed by essentially a Dream Quest. The secondary narrator's reluctance to describe the awful secrets he has gleaned is an expository "side-step" which would resurface several times in Lovecraft's fiction (here: "Of such things I cannot, dare not tell, for therein was revealed the hideous solution of all which had puzzled me; and that solution would drive you mad, even as it almost drove me..."). Lovecraft has sometimes gotten criticism for this kind of "judicious secret-hoarding", but it's actually much less frequent than one would expect. 
     Finally, a brief mention of the city Stethelos hints at the titular character of 1921's "The Quest of Iranon", who preternaturally maintains his youth, until the tale's melancholy final scene.
The Horrible Conclusion:
     I will send a message across the horrible immeasurable abyss....
Read it here.

Follow'd by "Beyond the Wall of Sleep".