The Wind-Threnody

Read "The Wind-Threnody" at The Eldritch Dark:

http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/646/the-wind-threnody

This is a poem by Clark Ashton Smith (CAS) that remained unpublished in his lifetime.  For me as a reader, I'm surprised that CAS did not favor this poem enough to include it in any of the several collections issued with his direct involvement.  

This poem provides a compelling interweaving of visual and auditory elements.  The final stanza is particularly powerful:


The music grows and swells amain,
A grand, full-volumed melody,
Sad, sorrowful inexpressibly,
And laden with secret, world-old pain--
Nature's eternal threnody.


Throughout the poem, CAS uses adjectives like "plaintive", "mournful", and "sorrowful" which set an obvious tone, and then in the last lines he gives us "secret, world-old pain-- / Nature's eternal threnody".  So on the surface, this is a poem about the end of day accompanied by wind song, but with that very last line CAS expands the theme to something more all-encompassing.  

To George Sterling

This is one of several poems with the same title that Clark Ashton Smith (CAS) wrote.  This particular version was not published in CAS' lifetime, and likewise it is not available on The Eldritch Dark, so I'll begin with the text itself:


O Beauty, goddess known and sung of old
They say that thou our later world hast fled
Her altars cold, her worship past and dead;
Now to the high, insatiate god of Gold
Alone man's knees are bent, their prayers said.
Yet haply still there be a few that hold
Her faith, and to her secret temple led,
Enwreath with long white amaranths her head.

High priest of these by right divine though art
          Who singest here beside the western shore
                    Immortal threnodies in Beauty's praise
Nor can her faith and ritual depart.
          Though men at false and rival shrines implore,
While such as though to service give thine days.


Right off the bat, it strikes me that a couple of words in the second stanza were likely transcribed incorrectly in the Hippocampus Press collection that I'm reading.  It seems to me that the stanza ought to read (my changes in bold):


High priest of these by right divine thou art
          Who singest here beside the western shore
                    Immortal threnodies in Beauty's praise
Nor can her faith and ritual depart.
          Though men at false and rival shrines implore,
While such as thou to service give thine days.


Those quibbles aside, this poem is somewhat unremarkable even when compared to the two previous works by CAS with the same title that I have read.  The author's appreciation of George Sterling's work is evident, but perhaps not as well articulated as in the earlier companion pieces.

The Summer Hills

This is another early poem by Clark Ashton Smith (CAS) that was not published during his lifetime, so I'll begin with the text itself:

How brown the rolling hills outspread--

The grass of spring is sere and dun;

From cloudless skies the flaying sun

Has bronzed its green.  The Spring is dead,

As plain the sombre hills declare;

The flow'rs are gone that yesterday,

It seems, with mass of bloom, held sway;

No more the hills their liv'ry hear

This brown doth Summer's rule proclaim--

Fierce Summer, with his touch that seres

His sign on ev'ry hill appears,

His fervid heat, his breath of flame.

While the idea of characterizing summer heat and sunshine as flame is nothing original to CAS, the flow of his rich language is entrancing, especially in the very last lines:

Fierce Summer, with his touch that seres

His sign on ev'ry hill appears,

His fervid heat, his breath of flame.

The description of "Fierce Summer" is both powerful and instantly recognizable for any reader that has sweated through a broiling day when it seems that the rains will never come again.

The Fanes of Dawn

Read "The Fanes of Dawn" at the Eldritch Dark:

http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/179/the-fanes-of-dawn

Somehow, I'm not getting much out of this early poem by Clark Ashton Smith (CAS).  It shares many characteristics with other of his early poems that I have enjoyed, but this one feels a little vague and hesitant.  The imagery never acquires a solid feel, and even the line-ending rhymes feel a little forced.  This poem was uncollected in CAS' lifetime, and I imagine the author didn't consider it a notable item in his own body of work.

At Midnight

This early poem by Clark Ashton Smith was unpublished in his lifetime, and not available on The Eldritch Dark, so here's the text itself:

Sleepless I stand at Night's mysterious noon

Upon the hill, to watch the heavens unroll

Their star-emblazoned hieroglyphic scroll

And listen to the song the waters croon

To which the winds of night their harps entune--

The melodies which gathering to a whole

Do strangely, deeply stir and thrill the soul

Recalling music of some long-waned moon

Who love her beauty and her mystery.

Speak, too, of all her brooding loveliness

Wherewith my thrilling spirit holds commune

And, rapt in understanding sympathy,

Doth feel her [           ] mood upon me press.

The brackets in the last line indicate a missing word, implying that CAS never finished this poem.

Theres's not much about this poem that I find particularly notable.  There is a nice rhythm and flow to the language, but among the fifty-odd poems by CAS that I have read so far, this one simply doesn't stand out in anyway, so I'm not surprised that the author did not see fit to include it in any of the collections published during his lifetime.

Somnus (A Fragment)

Read "Somnus" at The Eldritch Dark:

http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/517/somnus

Clark Ashton Smith (CAS) included this work in his Selected Poems (1971) among a selection of his early poems.  Although this poem is subtitled "A Fragment", it feels complete to me, especially since it describes a dream state, and thus is well-served by brevity and a lack of concrete imagery.

These lines read very much to me like an incantation, as though they were the words of a spell intended to put the listener to sleep.  CAS has included a couple of verbs ("falter", "grope") that really enhance the feeling of exploring the mysterious space between sleep and waking.

The Night of Despair

Once again, we have a poem unpublished in the lifetime of Clark Ashton Smith (CAS).  Likewise this one is not available on The Eldritch Dark, so here's the full text:


About me closed the darkness of Despair
Whose dusky mists were chill upon my face.
Darkled and grew that heavy night apace;
Breathless and silent hung the ominous air
With dread and terror pregnant everywhere
And on the darkness I could dimly trace
Amorphous shapes in endless constant race
They passed.  Beneath their fixed and pitiless stare
Who seemed accusing ghosts of futile days
My spirit flinched and desperate I turned
To where Death's gulfs made offer of their peace.
But did not try those deeps for staying fears.
The night wore on till lo, afar there burned
Hope's star that heralded the dawn's release.


This is quite a formidable description of an experience of despair, unforgiving until the very last lines where the dawning of a new day brings relief.  Especially dramatic is the narrator's encounter with the allure and escape of death, an offering he refuses out of an even greater fear.

This is certainly the darkest poem that I have yet read in my journey through the poetic corpus of CAS, and it will be interesting to see how he develops this theme further in the weird and fantastic verses for which he is best known, most of which came later in his career. 

The Music of the Gods

Here we have another poem unpublished during the lifetime of Clark Ashton Smith (CAS), and not available on The Eldritch Dark, so I'll begin with the poem itself:

I walked one silent eve while loud and strong

          A music fell as though from the empty sky--

          A sudden harmony, divine and high

That seemed of some unseen supernal throng,

Sweeping the heavens on mighty wings of song:

          Above, about, at once afar and nigh

          Surged waves of sound, that swelled in ecstasy

As music of the deep, sustained and long.

Invested by that sea as by the air

          My soul was swept to whirlwind heights of sound

And there depressed to maelstroms fathomless--

In antiphons of joy and vast despair,

Till from the music's culminating stress,

          I sank to earth with sight and hearing drowned.

Wow.  This is one heck of a portrayal of an intense experience of sound.  The narrator is practically assaulted by "A sudden harmony, divine and high", which leads in turn to his soul being "swept to whirlwind heights of sound".  The final impact of sinking "to earth with sight and hearing drowned" brings us to a hard stop.  It seems that in being exposed to "The Music of the Gods", the narrator has experienced something that is simply too much for mortal man to endure.

Reading works like "The Music of the Gods" reminds me why poetry is such an important art form, although often neglected in our un-literary modern culture.  In the short fourteen-line form of a sonnet, CAS has described an intense event with considerable dramatic flourish.  

Rendering this same idea in prose would very likely weaken it, so I'm all the more glad to be taking a long journey through the entire poetic corpus of CAS.  There are real gems in this body of work that are worth discovering and savoring.

Autumn's Pall

Read "Autumn's Pall" at The Eldritch Dark:

http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/40/autumn%27s-pall

Once again, I'm quite impressed by the ability of Clark Ashton Smith (CAS) to create an effective nature study in a very few lines of poetry.  Here he invokes a robust image of snow covering the last remnants of the preceding season.  

There are three sentences in this poem, and the middle sentence identifies the actors responsible for the current situation:


                    Night's hours, like thieves
Have stol'n them all, and now the Winter weaves
Where erst they lay, an ermine pall of snow.


This is great stuff - the image of Winter weaving "an ermine pall of snow" is particularly strong and lyrical.  For a work that CAS chose not to publish in his lifetime, this one strikes me as a real standout.

The Island of a Dream

Here is another poem unpublished during the lifetime of the author Clark Ashton Smtith (CAS).  Nor is it available on The Eldritch Dark, so I'll being with the text itself:


Oh! alien isle, sea-lost and isolate,
          What loud horizons of the irremediable sea
          Ensure thy strange, remote serenity,--
Beyond what last horizon isolate!

Lo! For thy sake, the world's allured young winds 
          Shall roam passageless, desolate, forlorn,
          seeking thee ever; shoreless and outworn, 
To the sea's purple sink the world's old winds.

Like Heaven's one large inverted flower,
          The enchanted lotus of the purple light
          Sufficient; till the manifold, vast, white,
And deep moon-nenuphar supremely blows.


Of the early poems by CAS that I have so far, this one feels closest to being unfinished, in the sense that there are several ideas presented that feel incomplete.  For example, there are invocations of the colors purple and white that don't seem to fulfill a clear purpose.  

That said, the poem is titled "The Island of a Dream", which does make we wonder whether CAS' goal might simply have been to capture one of his dreams in poetic form, without too much concern for making all of the pieces fit together logically.

Wings of Perfume

Read "Wings of Perfume" at The Eldritch Dark:

http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/653/wings-of-perfume

This is a hypnotic early poem by Clark Ashton Smith (CAS).  It was unpublished during his lifetime, and as with some other of his early verses that I have read so far, I'm a but surprised that CAS did not choose to include in any of the several collections that were published under his supervision.

What impresses me about "Wings of Perfume" is the feeling of a fever dream, a shifting and inconstant experience that is hard to capture or describe.  Many of CAS' word choices in this poem enhance that feeling: "incognizable", "half-remembered", "indescribable", "scarce conceivable" and so on.

An argument could be made that this poem relies too heavily on those vague adjectives, but I find them compelling as a reader, since they create a scenario that has no solid edges, but is ripe with rich language such as "Rapt in the fluctuant ecstatic gloom".  This is not necessarily one of CAS' best poems, but he successfully creates an unsettling atmosphere that is quite rewarding to the reader.

War

This poem was unpublished during the lifetime of Clark Ashton Smith (CAS) so let's begin with the text itself:

He sits encrowned upon his awful throne

Of skulls; within the vast and ambient gloom

Which strive the red-flamed torches to illume

In vain, and leave full half its reach unknown.

A sword across his knees, he reigns alone

With merciless proud eyes, and mien of stone,

While 'fore him go like spectres from the tomb

In long review the victims of his doom,

In silence broken only for a groan

From bloodless lips.  Here mighty kings o'erthrown

Look toward him with accusing eyes as go

They past, and once great captains moan

And soldiers pass, with swords and helms made low

In ghastly file of shapes the dead assume.

This poem makes me think of some of the characters created by Robert E. Howard (REH), such as Conan the Barbarian and Kull the Conqueror. So much so, that I would have guessed it to be the work of REH if I had encountered the work with no authorial attribution.

Of course, CAS wrote this poem around 1911, more than twenty years before he came into contact with REH.  But it's interesting to see that in an early poem like "War" CAS was dealing with themes that would be dear to his future correspondent.

This poem has a powerful sense of atmosphere, all the more impressive since the subject who "sits encrowned upon his awful throne" doesn't actually do anything other than watch a somber parade go by.  The lines "A sword across his knees, he reigns alone / With merciless proud eyes, and mien of stone" provide a strongly developed characterization, and the image of a brooding yet victorious warlord really lingers in my mind after reading these very impactful lines.

A Sunset

Read "A Sunset" at The Eldritch Dark:

http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/557/a-sunset-%28as%29

This is one of two poems that Clark Ashton Smith (CAS) wrote with the same title. The present poem was included both in his first published collection The Star-Treader and Other Poems (1912) as well as his career-spanning Selected Poems (1971).

Although this poem is composed of only four lines, it presents a powerful image of a sunset colored as by blood from a wound.  The phrase "some enormous hurt" is arresting, and establishes a disturbing tone right from the start.  In the third line we get the image of "a dabbled skirt" which both completes the rhyme initiated with "hurt" and strengthens the suggestion of violence.

The Flower of the Night

Here we have another poem unpublished during the lifetime of Clark Ashton Smith, so I'll begin with the text itself:

The splendid aureate rose of Day

With evening pines and fades away,

And through the shadow-shrouded hours

The vast vague bloom of Darkness flow'rs.

A small poem, but the contrasting "splendid aureate rose of Day" and "vast vague bloom of Darkness" creates an almost palpable tension between the day and the night, which makes the poem something more than a simple work of naturalism.

To the Morning Star

This short poem was unpublished during the lifetime of Clark Ashton Smith (CAS), so I'll begin with the text itself:

Thou art the star of hope that 'fore the dawn

Doth gild and gorgeously incarnadine

The eastern peaks [          ] doth shine

Above the faintly whitening horizon.

O star of hope and faith shine gently on

O Gleam [sic] thou bright within the orient sky

For by thy sign we know that dawn is nigh

That darkness and the night will soon be gone.

This is one of two poems with the same title that CAS wrote.  The second one was written later, so I'll get to it sometime in the future as I read more-or-less chronologically through the poetic works of CAS.

The brackets in line three represent a blank space left by the author, indicating that this poem was never finished.  

This is a fairly straightforward poem, but the imagery is very expressive, particularly in the second line ("Doth gild and gorgeously incarnadine") where CAS mixes gold and blood-red colors to accurately capture the unique tint of a rising sun.

The Storm

Here's another poem unpublished during the lifetime of Clark Ashton Smith (CAS), so I'll begin with the poem itself:


To-west the black Titanic clouds reared high
In battle form stupendous and afar;
On wind-steeds fleet they rapidly drew nigh,
Swift hasting to the elemental war.
Their skirmishers the sky's blue field o'erran
The massive, serried legions followed fast;
Then suddenly the awful battle 'gan
With lightning flash and thunder's rambling blast.
The drenching rain in rattling sheets poured down
And overhead the storm in combat roll'd;
Long thus its cohorts strove, wind blown,
For some strange meed, as strove the kings of old.
Black night came on at last, and suddenly,
As if retreat had blown, the tempest ceased
Quick stilled the thunder's loud artillery,
The rattling rain died down, the clouds passed off to East
I watched their rear guard flee in ordered rout
To some new battle ground adown the sky
And in its wake the gleaming stars leapt out
And shone the crescent moon serene and high.


While the metaphor of storm-as-battle is somewhat obvious, CAS executes the idea with a lot of vigor.  The four lines right in the middle of the poem are especially powerful:


The drenching rain in rattling sheets poured down
And overhead the storm in combat roll'd;
Long thus its cohorts strove, wind blown,
For some strange meed, as strove the kings of old.


Here the storm clouds are pursuing a mysterious goal ("For some strange meed"), lending a narrative drive to these lines that goes beyond the obvious battle metaphor.  The fact that the specific nature of the meed being sought is left undefined enhances the supernatural aspect of the poem tremendously.

Sonnets of the Seasons (The Wizardry of Winter)

This poem ends the sequence of three "Sonnets of the Seasons".  As these were all unpublished during the lifetime of Clark Ashton Smith (CAS), I'll start with the text itself:

Behold the Winter's potent wizardry,

          That hides in vestal white the barren ground,

          And all the leaves that lie in banks around

Each stripped, bereft, and naked Autumn tree.

Behold hs magic on the hill and lea,

          His wonder-working hand, whereby are bound

          The singing rivulets, so that no sound

Now strikes the pallid silence merrily.

How strange and white, beneath the cheerless skies,

The Winter-duranced land, far-visioned, lies.

          Now break the clouds, and from a wind-borne seat

Of dismal gray, the Sun looks goldenly.

Lo! each tree stands a jeweled fantasy

          And countless gems are 'neath our trampling feet!

This sonnet has quite a few compound words (such as "wonder-working" and "far-visioned").  CAS' mentor George Sterling warned him against the use of such in letter from 1911, shortly after the two poets first came into contact.  Echoing advice that he received from his own mentor Ambrose Bierce, Sterling told Smith that:

Just a word as to compound words such as "fear-stricken".  Bierce warns me against any great use of them, unless thereby unusual strength is attained.  I didn't agree with him at first, but (as in most instances) begin to do so as a I grow older. 

Sterling's comment specifically addressed CAS' poem "The Last Night" (which I have not yet covered on this blog).  But the suggestion is interesting when considering the present sonnet, since I think lines like "The Winter-duranced land, far-visioned, lies" do in fact convey a powerful and complex image that is enhanced by the careful inclusion of compound words.

Sonnets of the Seasons (Summer)

This is the second of a grouped set of three sonnets by Clark Ashton Smith (CAS), and as it was unpublished in his lifetime, let's start with the poem itself:

Now comes the Seasons' high and ardent noon

          Fulfillment of Spring's youthful prophecy

          Full-flow'red and fruited.  Hesitatingly

She follows on the last late showers of June.

Bringing the roses and a waxing moon

          Enamored of her beauty, fervently 

          The Sun-God leans, with oaths of constancy

To kiss her face.  Ah! days of warmth and boon,

Wrapped in a haze of sunlit, drowsy peace

          Oh! purple nights, slumbrously passionate

And bright with starry zones and coronals,

When birds weave webs of silver harmonies

          Till air grows heavy with the aural weight,

And silence like a sweeter music falls.

As with the sonnet "Spring" which opened this series of three, this is a fairly straightforward nature study, but this time around the language has an almost ecstatic quality.  The  closing lines of the poem are especially powerful:

          Oh! purple nights, slumbrously passionate

And bright with starry zones and coronals,

When birds weave webs of silver harmonies

          Till air grows heavy with the aural weight,

And silence like a sweeter music falls.

"The aural weight" of birdsong ceasing as night falls is a wonderful phrase, and really shows CAS' ability to render in a handful of words the full resonance of a lived experience.

Sonnets of the Seasons (Spring)

There are three "Sonnets of the Seasons" grouped together in The Complete Poetry and Translations of Clark Ashton Smith (CAS) from Hippocampus Press, and I'll be considering them one-by-one in individual blog posts.

None of these poems were published during CAS' lifetime, nor are they available on The Eldritch Dark, so here is the first of the three sonnets:


O Spring, not only in the awakened earth,
          The leafing forests and the greening hills
          The gladsome impulse generously thrills.
The joy of buds unfolding and the birth
Of grasses, and the happiness and mirth
          Of all the newly freed and singing rills
          Whose rhythmic voices gyving Winter stills
Rouse in my breast where lately brumal dearth
Held sway.  O wakened forces of the Spring,
          Thy strength and aspiration towards the sun
          Thine exultation and joy are mine.
Oh! would that, as the streamlets, I might sing,
Would that my praising with the lark's were one!
Then might I voice the joyance that is thine!



This is a fairly straightforward nature poem, infused with some rich language and a vibrant embrace of the spring season.  As with some previous nature poems from CAS that I have read, this one seems to incorporate the author's own voice:


Oh! would that, as the streamlets, I might sing,
Would that my praising with the lark's were one!
Then might I voice the joyance that is thine!


Considering that these lines were written by the teenaged CAS, one can read them as the yearning of the young poet for the skill to create verses worthy of his own ambitions.  That's a powerful sentiment in one so young, and a key to understanding the role that poetry played in the life of Clark Ashton Smith.

Moods of the Sea

Here is another poem unpublished during the lifetime of Clark Ashton Smith (CAS), and not available at The Eldritch Dark, so to begin with, the text itself:


How sad and melancholy is the sea
With that low murm'ring threnody it sings
Upon its strands, as if in memory
Of dead forgot, and disabled kings.

How restless is the sea, when billows rise
And race its bosom o'er unceasingly;
No peace within the ocean lies
From shore to shore, no quiet in the sea--

How angry is the sea when tempests last
And loud the rearing billows [          ] and roar
And sullenly the foam-tipped breakers crash
Upon the yellow sands and rock-strewn shore.


The brackets in line ten represent a space intentionally left blank by CAS, presumably with the intention of completing the poem at a later time.

"Moods of the Sea" is a straightforward poem, but I like the invocation of a unique mood in each stanza ("sad and melancholy", "restless", "angry"), even if those moods all have something of a dark aspect to them.

Poems like this one make me glad I'm taking the time to slowly read through CAS' entire poetic corpus.  CAS chose not to include this particular poem in any of the collections issued during his lifetime, and while it's certainly not a major poem, it is still powerful and evocative and well worth reading. 

To George Sterling

Read "To George Sterling" at The Eldritch Dark:

http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/589/to-george-sterling-%28his%29

This is the second poem from Clark Ashton Smith (CAS) with the same title, and not the last I'll be reading - CAS wrote several tributes to the elder poet who inspired him so much.  This one takes the form of a sonnet.

Perhaps what jumps out at me most from these lines is the hopeful beginning: "His song shall waken the dull-sleeping throng / That dreams of sullen and of earth-bound things", a thought that is continued in the last line of the first stanza: "He stands defiant of Oblivion's wrong."

In the end, George Sterling is probably only remembered at all here in the twenty-first century because of his connection to CAS.  It's a bit of a shame, but at least CAS had the opportunity (on more than one occasion) to acknowledge his personal debt to Sterling, and that action in itself is likely responsible for most of Sterling's modern readership.

The Suns and the Void

Read "The Suns and the Void" at The Eldritch Dark:

http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/556/the-suns-and-the-void

This poem brings us into the realm of the cosmic imagination that forms a big part of the artistic reputation of Clark Ashton Smith (CAS).  Like his most famous poem "The Hashish-Eater", this poem is written in blank verse, which has the effect of propelling the reader forward, since the natural pauses provided by rhymed line endings are absent.

The scope of the setting in this poem is tremendous, and it really does remind me of "The Hashish-Eater" because of the rapid succession of images that appear briefly and then are quickly replaced.  The sensation of the narrator being overwhelmed by all that he is imagining is wonderfully articulated:


O suns, thy light doth blind and stun the soul!
The imponderable abyss is as a weight
To crush the spirit utterly!


"The Suns and the Void" provides quite a contrast to some of the nature studies that I have been reading among CAS' early poems, and shows evidence both of CAS' discovery of the work of George Sterling and his own questing after a larger canvas on which to work, moving from the confines of rural California to the immense realms of the universe as we know it.

Ode on the Future of Song

This is another poem unpublished during the life of Clark Ashton Smith (CAS), so let's get started with the text itself:

As yet yon stars are silver-faint,

Yea, wan as the beginning dreams

That fill the increasing gloom of sleep;

But soon their gleams

Shall utterly possess and paint

Our night with lusters of the further deep,

Yea, even as slumber's outer-space

Gives dreams unto the mind's far inward-place.

To me, who stand

Upon the threshold of the future's song

The brightening of its dreams,

As now within a morn of stars, it seems

That these shall be

Not less effulgent, beautiful, nor strong

Than those which in the Past's illumined land

Shone the fulfillment and the prophecy

Of song that was and song to come.

For, simple and as complex as the day,

Shall song, which stands coeval with the stars,

Fade from the skies of Time?

Not till the stars are dumb,

The springs of morn run dry, and snow and rime

A strength to stay

And bind the sun with bars!

Hath light grown dull

Since yesteryear?

This is great stuff.  In these lines, CAS is really celebrating the art of poetry and the potential future of that art.  His confidence in the medium of poetry is boundless:

Shall song, which stands coeval with the stars,

Fade from the skies of Time?

Not till the stars are dumb,

The springs of morn run dry, and snow and rime

A strength to stay

And bind the sun with bars!

I read the "Ode on the Future of Song" as an artistic manifesto, and a bold statement from the teenage Clark Ashton Smith.  The fact that this poem was unpublished in his lifetime makes me wonder if, in retrospect, he found it a little too brash.  If so, that would be a shame, since no artist should doubt the power of their work if they are capable and committed, and CAS was certainly both of those things.