Monday, September 3, 2018

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.

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