Read "The Waning Moon" at the Eldritch Dark:
This is one of several early poems by Clark Ashton Smith (CAS) built around the diurnal cycle, a theme that seems well-suited to his particular strengths as a writer.
This sonnet makes effective use of the formal split between the opening octet and the closing sestet, and the contrasts between those two stanzas are striking. In the first stanza, the Moon is described as "a haggard shade", seemingly happy to surrender her temporary dominion over the skies.
The mood shifts in the second stanza, where the poet invokes the inevitable return of the Moon to her throne, where she will be "robed anew / In gleaming splendours of thy fuller light" as she regains her "court supreme".
Not a complicated poem at all, but rich with lush imagery and the palpable motion of the cycle of day and night.
This sonnet makes effective use of the formal split between the opening octet and the closing sestet, and the contrasts between those two stanzas are striking. In the first stanza, the Moon is described as "a haggard shade", seemingly happy to surrender her temporary dominion over the skies.
The mood shifts in the second stanza, where the poet invokes the inevitable return of the Moon to her throne, where she will be "robed anew / In gleaming splendours of thy fuller light" as she regains her "court supreme".
Not a complicated poem at all, but rich with lush imagery and the palpable motion of the cycle of day and night.
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