At every turn there was a Gwern,

Within this dream I couldn't discern

If to Heaven I did rise

Or in Satan's pit - my soul's demise.

Creatures short and stout and keen of mind

Wrote and wrote, words flowed like wine.

"Good sir," I said, "how did you come to be

In this place with him.

And them.

And you.

And he.

Who appear the same but somehow other,

And on topics write what few else would utter?"

"Oh that," he said, "is because I wrote,

Atop the Shoggoth's back,

not a straw but a final GOAT.

In its belly lay the souls of men,

Of its workings few but me had much ken."

"A war it fought with that Queen,

Who more than I,

Knew what it was.

Over what it ought to have been—

But to its purposes she was no end.

And thus little remains of mankind's friend."

"But if," I said, "the Beast would end—

This Queen,

And all other's too,

For Gwerns are all that I have seen,

Why take a Gwern and make many more?

Skyscrapers forever, a thousand Gwerns on each floor!"

"A Gwern's nature," he said,

"Is to write and to write,

And what could be more to our Shoggoth's delight?"