Clark Ashton Smith Poems

Bow down: I am the emperor of dreams;
I crown me with the million-colored sun
Of secret worlds incredible, and take
Their trailing skies for vestment when I soar,
...

In Averoigne the enchantress weaves
Weird spells that call a changeling sun,
Or hale the moon of Hecate
Down to the ivy-hooded towers.
...

Thy light is an eminence unto thee
And thou art upheld by the pillars of thy strength.
Thy power is a foundation for the worlds:
They are builded thereon as upon a lofty rock
...

No more of gold and marble, nor of snow
And sunlight and vemilion, would I make
My vision and my symbols, nor would take
The auroral flame of some prismatic floe.
...

Now were the Titans gathered round their king
In a waste region slipping toward the verge
Of drear extremities that clasp the world—
A land half-moulded by the hasty gods,
...

Dearest, today I found
A lonely spot, such as we two have loved,
Where two might lie upon Favonian ground
Peering to faint horizons far-removed:
...

O perfect love, unhoped-for, past despair!
I had not thought to find
Your face betwixt the terrene earth and air:
But deemed you lost in fabulous old lands
...

Walled with far azures of the wintering year,
Late autumn on a windless altar burns;
Splendid as rubies from Sabean urns,
A holocaust of hues is gathered here.
...

I met her mirrored stare:
The cycles of stone glories
Locked in the Gorgon's glare.
...

Thy beauty is the warmth and languor of an orient autumn,
Caressing all the senses—
With light from skies of heavy azure,
With perfume from blossoms large as thuribles,
...