By Jolie Toomajan
Dorothy Quick authored fifteen stories and twenty-five poems for Weird Tales alone (the very last thing published by this iteration of Weird Tales was her poem “This Night,” below). Her biography has been completely subsumed by her friendship with Mark Twain. Quick met Twain aboard the S.S. Minnetonka when she was between the ages of 9 and 11, and she joined the collection of little girls (dubbed his “angelfish”) that Twain kept around him during the final years of his life (…). Twain encouraged her to write. This is not to say that the attention to the relationship was entirely unwanted (Quick wrote about it extensively herself), but the relationship has completely overshadowed Quick’s own writing.
Quick has a fairly massive bibliography, having authored 15 books of both poetry and fiction, including a popular series of cozy mysteries. Though this is a selection of her later work, she wrote for the pulps for more than 30 years.
* * *
THIS NIGHT
Weird Tales, September 1954
The fog comes in from the sea
And the wind blows over the marsh,
While the scent of hay on the lea
Is noisome, cold and harsh.
The moon is under a cloud
The shadows are dark and grim,
All land is wrapt in a shroud
At some mysterious whim.
This night is full of a sound
That no other night could hold.
While man is horror-bound
And strangely, strangely cold.
Whence does the terror come?
Why should dark fear remain?
Man, with his senses numb
Prays to be sane, again.
* * *
UNSOUGHT ADVICE
Weird Tales, May 1937
Traffic not with ghosts
Lest if you do
You find their world
More real than earth to you.
* * *
AFTER AN AIR RAID
Weird Tales, January 1943
They met on the top of a flower-strewn hill
Where the soft clear air was cool, was still.
They looked at each other with glad surprise
And a new sweet light was in their eyes.
They stretched out their hands and their fingers met;
They renounced the world without regret
For they knew, in that instant, they were one,
And a new existence had just begun.
So it did not matter, the two ghosts said,
That the world they’d left would call them dead.
* * *
WALPURGIS NIGHT
Weird Tales, January 1954
She loved the house and her own fireside.
The Hearth was dark, and it stretches wide.
Her man was dear, and he held her tight.
Outside were the calls of Walpurgis night.
She left his arms and the fireside’s heat,
She left the joy of her own heart beat,
She opened the door and music came.
While a hundred voices called her name.
Within was love and light and fire.
Without was strange unknown desire.
The wind swirled in, the wind swirled out.
It whipped her long skirts all about.
She stepped outside, the door closed fast.
The voices whispered, “You’ve come at last!
Strange hands caught her and pulled her on
When the door was opened—she was gone.
* * *
Demon Lover
Weird Tales November 1953
Demon Lover, Demon Lover
Will you never come?
I have walked thrice windershins,
Bitten my own thumb.
I have spilled three drops of blood
And sung the song of shame.
Called to you with longing
Named the dreadful name
Demon Lover, Demon Lover
What else can I do?
I have whispered awful things
Calling out to you.
I have made a waxen man
And bound it to my heart.
Burned the devil’s candle,
Still you stay apart.
Demon Lover, Demon Lover
What is this you say?
I must do these things at night
Never by the day—
Only by the gibbious
Moon and the gallows tree
Can you find the pathway
Leading you to me.
Demon Lover, Demon Lover
High the moon, and shrill
Croaks the lonely raven
On the gallows hill
There’s stirring on the marches,
But oh my heart is numb,
For now, oh Demon Lover
At last, at last you come!
* * *
