“The Dark Eternal Night” is adapted from “Nyarlathotep” by H.P. Lovecraft.
There are several near and direct quotes/references from this story in the song. Here’s what I found:
– TDEN:
No one dared to
Speak of the terrible danger
The hideous ancient warnings
Forged in the void of night
– Lovecraft:
“I do not recall distinctly when it began, but it was months ago. The general tension was horrible. To a season of political and social upheaval was added a strange and brooding apprehension of hideous physical danger; a danger widespread and all-embracing, such a danger as may be imagined only in the most terrible phantasms of the night. I recall that the people went about with pale and worried faces, and whispered warnings and prophecies which no one dared consciously repeat or acknowledge to himself that he had heard.”
– TDEN:
He is risen up
Out of the blackness
Chaos
The last of the prophets
Sinister
A sickening monstrous sight
– Lovecraft:
“He said he had risen up out of the blackness of twenty-seven centuries, and that he had heard messages from places not on this planet. Into the lands of civilisation came Nyarlathotep, swarthy, slender, and sinister…”
“…the crawling chaos…”
– TDEN:
Through the stifling heat
Underneath the pale green moon
I burned with a thirst
To seek things not yet seen
Climbing endless stairs
Leading to the choking room
Eager to explore
His most shocking mysteries
– Lovecraft:
“…through the stifling night and up the endless stairs into the choking room”
“I believe we felt something coming down from the greenish moon…”
“…I burned with eagerness to explore his uttermost mysteries. My friend said they were horrible and impressive beyond my most fevered imaginings; and what was thrown on a screen in the darkened room prophesied things none but Nyarlathotep dared prophesy, and in the sputter of his sparks there was taken from men that which had never been taken before yet which shewed only in the eyes. And I heard it hinted abroad that those who knew Nyarlathotep looked on sights which others saw not.”
– TDEN:
Drifting beyond all time
Out of a churning sky
Drawn to the beckoning light
Of the dark eternal night
– Lovecraft:
“…unlighted chambers beyond Time…”
– TDEN:
Black forces
Rage in the vortex
Fighting
Waves of destruction
Swallowing
The echo of the universe
– Lovecraft:
“And I saw the world battling against blackness; against the waves of destruction from ultimate space; whirling, churning, struggling around the dimming, cooling sun.”
– TDEN:
I am the last
Born of the blood of the pharaohs
The ultimate god of a rotting creation
Sent to unleash this curse
– Lovecraft:
“I am the last…”
“A sickened, sensitive shadow writhing in hands that are not hands, and whirled blindly past ghastly midnights of rotting creation…”
“And it was then that Nyarlathotep came out of Egypt. Who he was, none could tell, but he was of the old native blood and looked like a Pharaoh.”
– TDEN:
Restless crowds draw near
Nameless hooded forms appear
Amidst falling ruins
Grotesque creatures battle
Shadowed on a screen
Yellow evil faces leer
Vacant monuments
Corpses of dead worlds left behind
– Lovecraft:
“It was in the hot autumn that I went through the night with the restless crowds to see Nyarlathotep…And shadowed on a screen, I saw hooded forms amidst ruins, and yellow evil faces peering from behind fallen monuments.”
“…corpses of dead worlds…”
