Gift by R. S. Thomas

Some ask the world

and are diminished

in the receiving

of it. You gave me

 

only this small pool

that the more I drink

from, the more overflows

me with sourceless light.

 

by R. S. Thomas

from Experimenting with an Amen (1986)

The Last Night 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

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