# The Parrot (Robert E. Howard)

Howard had an amazing ability to memorize poetry on one or two readings, and songs from a single hearing, and would often cite it from memory--with the inevitable discrepancies. The departures from the original wording of these "mnemonic reconstructions" carry enough flavor of the Howard style to be of note here. In a 1934 letter to H. P. Lovecraft, Howard discussed his use of a seemingly prescient parrot in the Conan story "Iron Shadows on the Moon."
In a 1934 letter to H. P. Lovecraft, Howard discussed his use of a seemingly prescient parrot in the Conan story "Iron Shadows on the Moon." His recollections, and the reconstruction, appear as follows:
I'm afraid I can't claim originality in regard to the parrot and his repetition of the god's invocation [in “Iron Shadows on the Moon”]. I got the idea from a poem of Noyes', entitled, I believe, 'The Parrot". As I remember, it goes something like this:   When the king and his folk lay dead,  And the murderous horde was gone, He gnawed through his cage and fled  To the sheltering woods alone. But after an endless age,  He was taken by man once more; And swung in a sturdier cage  By a white-washed ale-house door. Through the long hot afternoon,  From his place by the blistered wall, He whistled a dark old tune,  And called as a ghost might call: "Farlo, merillo, geray!"  And the wondering people heard The voice of the dead that day  Talking again in a bird.   The poem ends on what seems to me a powerful and shuddersome note   And once, oh dreadful and wild,  In the blaze of the noonday sun, It shrieked like a frightened child  That into the dark has gone.
Here's the Alfred Noyes original   THE PARROT
When the king and his folk lay dead,  And the murderous hordes had gone, He gnawed through his cage and fled  To the swallowing woods alone; But, after an endless age,  He was taken by a man once more; And swung in a sturdier cage  By a sun-bleached wine-house door.
And there, on a hot white noon,  From his place on the blistered wall, He whistled a dark old tune  And called, as a ghost may call, Farlo — Merillo — Rozace,  With a chuckle of impish glee, The words of the vanished race,  That none knew now but he.
Farlo – Merillo – Geray!  And the spell struck listeners heard The tongue of the dead that day  Talking again in a bird; And his eyes were like blood-red stones,  For round him the wise men drew, And coaxed him with terrapin bones  To tell the words he knew.
Sleek as a peach was his breast  His long wings green as palms; And, whiles, like a prince he’d jest,  Then, beggar-like, whine for alms; And, whiles, like a girl in flight  He’d titter, then mimic a kiss, And chuckle again with delight  In that wicked old way of his.
He’d courtesy low, and he’d dance  On his perch, and mockingly leer, And stiffen himself and prance  For the grey-beards listening there; And once – O, dreadful and wild,  In the blaze of that noonday sun; He shrieked, like a frightened child,  That into the dark had gone.
—Alfred Noyes Dick Turpin's Ride and Other Poems 1927
This work is from the United States and in the public domain because it was not legally published with the permission of the copyright holder before January 1, 2003 and the author died 88 years ago. This is a posthumous work and its copyright in certain countries and areas may depend on years since posthumous publication, rather than years since the author's death. Translations or editions published later may be copyrighted.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1936, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 87 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse