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Poe's well known, but Lovecraft and Howard (who were good friends) wrote some pieces that can probably match Poe for morbidity.
Lovecraft:
The Courtyard
It was the city I had known before;
The ancient, leprous town where mongrel throngs
Chant to strange gods, and beat unhallowed gongs
In crypts beneath foul alleys near the shore.
The rotting, fish-eyed houses leered at me
From where they leaned, drunk and half-animate,
As edging through the filth I passed the gate
To the black courtyard where the man would be.
The dark walls closed me in, and loud I cursed
That ever I had come to such a den,
When suddenly a score of windows burst
Into wild light, and swarmed with dancing men:
Mad, soundless revels of the dragging dead -
And not a corpse had either hands or head!
Star-Winds
It is a certain hour of twilight glooms,
Mostly in autumn, when the star-wind pours
Down hilltop streets, deserted out-of-doors,
But shewing early lamplight from snug rooms.
The dead leaves rush in strange, fantastic twists,
And chimney-smoke whirls round with alien grace,
Heeding geometries of outer space,
While Fomalhaut peers in through southward mists.
This is the hour when moonstruck poets know
What fungi sprout in Yuggoth, and what scents
And tints of flowers fill Nithon's continents,
Such as in no poor earthly garden blow.
Yet for each dream these winds to us convey,
A dozen more of ours they sweep away!
Antarktos
Deep in my dream the great bird whispered queerly
Of the black cone amid the polar waste;
Pushing above the ice-sheet lone and drearly,
By storm-crazed aeons battered and defaced.
Hither no living earth-shapes take their courses,
And only pale auroras and faint suns
Glow on that pitted rock, whose primal sources
Are guessed at dimly by the Elder Ones.
If men should glimpse it, they would merely wonder
What tricky mound of Nature's build they spied;
But the bird told of vaster parts, that under
The mile-deep ice-shroud crouch and brood and bide.
God help the dreamer whose mad visions shew
Those dead eyes set in crystal gulfs below!
Night-Gaunts
Out of what crypt they crawl, I cannot tell,
But every night I see the rubbery things,
Black, horned, and slender, with membraneous wings,
And tails that bear the bifid barb of hell.
They come in legions on the north wind's swell,
With obscene clutch that titillates and stings,
Snatching me off on monstrous voyagings
To grey worlds hidden deep in nightmare's well.
Over the jagged peaks of Thok they sweep,
Heedless of all the cries I try to make,
And down the nether pits to that foul lake
Where the puffed shoggoths splash in doubtful sleep.
But oh! If only they would make some sound,
Or wear a face where faces should be found!
The Canal
Somewhere in dream there is an evil place
Where tall, deserted buildings crowd along
A deep, black, narrow channel, reeking strong
Of frightful things whence oily currents race.
Lanes with old walls half meeting overhead
Wind off to streets one may or may not know,
And feeble moonlight sheds a spectral glow
Over long rows of windows, dark and dead.
There are no footfalls, and the one soft sound
Is of the oily water as it glides
Under stone bridges, and along the sides
Of its deep flume, to some vague ocean bound.
None lives to tell when that stream washed away
Its dream-lost region from the world of clay.
Howard:
Dead Man's Hate
They hanged John Farrel in the dawn amid the marketplace;
At dusk came Adam Grand to him and spat upon his face.
"Ho neighbours all," spake Adam Brand, "see ye John Farrel's fate!
"'Tis proven here a hempen noose is stronger than man's hate!"
"For heard ye not John Farrel's vow to be avenged upon me
"Come life or death? See how he hangs high on the gallows tree!"
Yet never a word the people spoke, in fear and wild surprise --
For the grisly corpse raised up its head and stared with sightless eyes,
And with strange motions, slow and stiff, pointed at Adam Brand
And clambered down the gibbet tree, the noose within its hand.
With gaping mouth stood Adam Brand like a statue carved of stone,
Till the dead man laid a clammy hand hard on his shoulder bone.
Then Adam shrieked like a soul in hell; the red blood left his face
And he reeled away in a drunken run through the screaming market place;
And close behind, the dead man came with a face like a mummy's mask,
And the dead joints cracked and the stiff legs creaked with their unwonted task.
Men fled before the flying twain or shrank with bated breath,
And they saw on the face of Adam Brand the seal set there by death.
He reeled on buckling legs that failed, yet on and on he fled;
So through the shuddering market-place, the dying fled the dead.
At the riverside fell Adam Brand with a scream that rent the skies;
Across him fell John Farrel's corpse, nor ever the twain did rise.
There was no wound on Adam Brand but his brow was cold and damp,
For the fear of death had blown out his life as a witch blows out a lamp.
His lips were writhed in a horrid grin like a fiend's on Satan's coals,
And the men that looked on his face that day, his stare still haunts their souls.
Such was the fate of Adam Brand, a strange, unearthly fate;
For stronger than death or hempen noose are the fires of a dead man's hate.
The Dust Dance
Selections: Version I
For I, with the shape of my kin, the ape,
And the soul of a soaring hawk,
I fought my way from the jungle grey,
Where the hunting creatures stalk.
For I was made of the dust and the dew,
The dust and the clouds and the rain,
The snow and the grass, and when I pass,
I'll fade to the dust again.
I laughed when Nero's minions sent
Fire-tortured souls to the sky.
Without the walls of Pilate's halls,
I shouted "Crucify!"
I roared my glee to the sullen sea
Where Abel's blood was shed.
My jeer was loud in the gory crowd
That stoned St. Stephen dead.
You say God's spark has kindled my eye,
As the sun-rise reddens the east;
Into your beards I roar the lie --
'Tis the gleam of the stalking beast.
Oh, ye prophets, men of Israel,
Doff the sandal and the staff --
Moons rise silver over Kabul --
Follow me and learn to laugh.
* * *
The men go up and the men go down
And who shall follow the track of men?
The dust spins slow in the desert town,
And a fog drifts while on the silent fen.
The sword is broken, the shield is bent --
Our backs are at the wall.
Stark and silent they lay who went
To harry the coasts of Gaul.
From the north's blue deeps our galleys sweep
To south and west and east,
We bring our bows from the northern snows
That the great grey wolves may feast.
* * *
Grim, grim, grim the elephants were chanting,
Chanting in the jungle in the dim, dark dawn;
Through the waving branches were the late stars slanting,
Beating up the morning ere the night was gone.
Lion in the morning, crouching by the river.
Red birds flitting with a sing-song shrill.
Morning like a topaz, the green fronds a-quiver.
Scent of lush a-wafting in the dawn air still.
Moses was our leader when we came up out of Egypt --
Came up out of Egypt so many years ago --
When I think of magic, I always think of Moses,
Riding down to glory while the hautboys blow.
Oh, the plain was dusty -- how the heathen roar! --
Joshua and Israel! Hear the trumpets blow! --
How we shook the desert -- thank a Canaan whore --
Roaring in our triumph at the walls of Jericho.
* * *
Oh, Jezebel, oh, Jezebel,
They hurled you from the wall,
And all the priests and prudes of Israel
Gave thanks to see you fall.
But I could laugh with Jezebel,
And kiss her on the lips,
And strip the scarf from off her breasts,
The girdle from her hips.
For I foreswear Elijah,
Forget that Adam fell,
To press the waist of Lilith
And laugh with Jezebel.
Oh, brother Cain, oh, brother Cain,
I take you by the hand,
For Abel was the first prude
To cumber Eden's land.
Then down the road that leads to Hell,
We strode, a merry band --
Sargon, Belshazzar, Jezebel,
Cain with his bloody hand.
The Gates Of Nineveh
These are the gates of Nineveh: here
Sargon came when his wars were won,
Gazed at the turrets looming clear,
Boldly etched in the morning sun.
Down from his chariot Sargon came,
Tossed his helmet upon the sand,
Dropped his sword with its blade like flame,
Stroked his beard with his empty hand.
"Towers are flaunting their banners red,
"The people greet me with song and mirth,
"But a weird is on me," Sargon said,
"And I see the end of the tribes of earth."
"Cities crumble, and chariots rust --
"I see through a fog that is strange and gray --
"All kingly things fade back to the dust,
"Even the gates of Nineveh."
The Ghost Kings
The ghost kings are marching; the midnight knows their tread,
From the distant, stealthy planets of the dim, unstable dead;
There are whisperings on the night-winds and the shuddering stars have fled.
A ghostly trumpet echoes from a barren mountainhead;
Through the fen the wandering witch-lights gleam like phantom arrows sped;
There is silence in the valleys and the moon is rising red.
The ghost kings are marching down the ages' dusty maze;
The unseen feet are tramping through the moonlight's pallid haze,
Down the hollow clanging stairways of a million yesterdays.
The ghost kings are marching, where the vague moon-vapor creeps,
While the night-wind to their coming, like a thund'rous herald sweeps;
They are clad in ancient grandeur, but the world, unheeding, sleeps.
The Song Of The Bats
The dusk was on the mountain
And the stars were dim and frail
When the bats came flying, flying
From the river and the vale
To wheel against the twilight
And sing their witchy tale.
"We were kings of old!" they chanted,
"Rulers of a world enchanted;
"Every nation of creation
"Owned our lordship over men.
"Diadems of power crowned us,
"Then rose Solomon to confound us,
"In the form of beasts he bound us,
"So our rule was broken then."
Whirling, wheeling into westward,
Fled they in their phantom flight;
Was it but a wing-beat music
Murmured through the star-gemmed night?
Or the singing of a ghost clan
Whispering of forgotten might?
The Tempter
Something tapped me on the shoulder
Something whispered, "Come with me,
"Leave the world of men behind you,
"Come where care may never find you
"Come and follow, let me bind you
"Where, in that dark, silent sea,
"Tempest of the world ne'er rages;
"There to dream away the ages,
"Heedless of Time's turning pages,
"Only, come with me."
"Who are you?" I asked the phantom,
"I am rest from Hate and Pride.
"I am friend to king and beggar,
"I am Alpha and Omega,
"I was councilor to Hagar
"But men call me suicide."
I was weary of tide breasting,
Weary of the world's behesting,
And I lusted for the resting
As a lover for his bride.
And my soul tugged at its moorings
And it whispered, "Set me free.
"I am weary of this battle,
"Of this world of human cattle,
"All this dreary noise and prattle.
"This you owe to me."
Long I sat and long I pondered,
On the life that I had squandered,
O'er the paths that I had wandered
Never free.
In the shadow panorama
Passed life's struggles and its fray.
And my soul tugged with new vigor,
Huger grew the phantom's figure,
As I slowly tugged the trigger,
Saw the world fade swift away.
Through the fogs old Time came striding,
Radiant clouds were 'bout me riding,
As my soul went gliding, gliding,
From the shadow into day.
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