O lovely demon, half-divine!
Hemlock and hydromel and gall,
Honey and aconite and wine
Mingle to make thatmouth of thine-
Thy mouth I love: but most of all
It is thy tears that I desire-
Thy tears, like fountain-drops that fall
In garden red,Satanical;
Or like the tears of mist and fire,
Wept by the moon, that wizards use
to secret runes when they require
Some silver philtre,sweet and dire.
By Clark Ashton Smith
I met a witch with amber eyes
Who slowly sang a scarlet rune,
Shifting to an icy laughter
Like the laughter of the moon.
Red as a wanton’s was her mouth.
And fair the breast she bade me take
With a word that clove and clung
Burning like a furnace-flake.
But from her bright and lifted bosom,
When I touched it with my hand,
Came the many-needled coldness
Of a glacier-taken land.
And, lo! The witch with eyes of amber
Vanished like a blown-out flame,
Leaving but the lichen-eaten
Stone that bore a blotted name.
by Clark Ashton Smith
I dreamed a dream: I stood upon a height,
A mountain’s utmost eminence of snow.
Beholding ashen plains outflung below
To a far sea-horizon, dim and white.
Beneath the spectral sun’s expiring light
The world lay shrouded in a deathly glow;
Its last fear-laden voice, a wind, came low;
The distant sea lay hushed, as with affright.
I watched, until the pale and flickering sun,
In agony and fierce despair, flamed high,
And shadow-slain, went out upon the gloom.
Then Night, that war of gulf-born Titans won,
Impended for a breath on wings of doom.
And through the air fell like a falling sky.
by Clark Ashton Smith
Rambling At The Bridge Head 