This is another poem unpublished during the lifetime of Clark Ashton Smith (CAS), so let's begin with the text itself:
Mine is the larger freedom of the hills
That look afar on vale, and plain, and sea--
A living map extended wide below--
In windswept, azure-domed supremacy.
No freedom equals mine, who gaze on all--
Neither the freedom of the rolling main,
Of lashing, salty breeze and freshening spray,
Nor of the equal stretches of the plain.
So I am nearer to the sky than they:
The friendly sun bestows a stronger light,
And closer seems the myriad blossoming stars
That sows the illimitable fields of night.
Mine are the horizons that in distance fade,
The longer vistas and the larger view.
Unto mine eyes are holden all the vales
The city-studded plains that melt in blue.
I share them with the eagle and the hawk.
So I am free as are the [ ] rills,
The drifting summer clouds and carless winds.
Mine is the wider freedom of the hills.
According to the editors of The Complete Poetry and Translations (Hippocampus Press) the brackets in line 18 denote a space that CAS left blank, presumably with the intention to supply the missing word(s) at a later time.
"The Freedom of the Hills" has a rather straightforward message, whether you choose to focus on the literal or the metaphorical aspects. It strikes me as a nice bit of autobiography, given both that CAS spent most of his life in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, and that he spent his life creating art (in a variety of media) that was, for the most part, not widely appreciated outside a small circle of admirers.
Perhaps in the end his artistic vision was too elevated to appeal to a broad audience. I think the third stanza brilliantly captures his determination to stay the course and follow his own creative path:
So I am nearer to the sky than they:
The friendly sun bestows a stronger light,
And closer seems the myriad blossoming stars
That sows the illimitable fields of night.
No comments:
Post a Comment