Dialogue Poem by Clark Ashton Smith

One said: 'I have seen, from cliffs of doom,
The seven hells flame up in flower
Like a million upas trees that tower,
Massing their realms of poisonous bloom.

I have gone down where dragons writhe,
Mating within the nadir slime;
I have caressed in some mad clime
The Gorgon's ringlets, long and lithe.'

Another answered: 'I have known
The undated hour of agony
When sightless terror leers and crawls

Out of mere soil and simple stone;
When horror seeps from out four walls
And trickles from the unclouded sky.'