Clark Ashton Smith Poems

Now as the twilight's doubtful interval
Closes with night's accomplished certainty,
A wizard wind goes crying eerily,
And on the wold misshapen shadows crawl,
...

Wild cat, brother of my soul,
be untamed, and without chain;
Don't follow any human path,
And veil yourself in tops and weeds.
...

Chryselephantine, clear as carven name,
Before my gaze thy soul's eidolon stands,
As on the threshold of the frozen lands
A frozen sun forevermore the same.
...

Blind with your softly fallen hair,
I turn me from the twilight air;
And, ah, the wordless tale of love
My lips upon your lips declare!
...

I wandered ere the dream was done
Where over Nilus' nenuphars,
With all its ears of quivering stars,
The darkness listened for the sun.
...

Thy soul is like a secret garden-close,
Where roots of cleft rnandragoras enwreathe;
Where bergamot and fumitory breathe,
And ivy winds its tower with the rose.
...

My days are as a garden, where the dust
Of acrid fruits of Sodom sows the ground,
And bows vermillion lillies lofty-crowned,
Or fills the myriad mouths of sleepy lust,
...

Thou art immured in some sad garden sown with dust
Of fruit of Sodom that bedims the summer ground,
And burdenously bows the lilies many-crowned,
Or fills the pale and ebon mouths of sleepy lust
...

Across thy face a glimmer passes—
Wrought by what far and hidden flame?
Say, is it loveliness, or love,
Or light of sunken moons remembered
...

Spent autumn wanes; the leaf
Forsakes the vine, as from her coronal
The gems might fall,
Forgot by some mad empress in her grief.
...