Moon-Dawn

Read "Moon-Dawn" at The Eldritch Dark:

http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/346/moon-dawn

Here is a short poem from Clark Ashton Smith (CAS) which features a dramatic shift in tone between the two stanzas, somewhat reminiscent of the mid-point transition in "Lunar Mystery" (which I read yesterday).

In the opening stanza, CAS describes an evening landscape, and presents only a hint of darker things afoot, anchored by classical associations between the cypress and the underworld of Greek myth, as well as similar associations between the pine and immortality.

The second stanza intensifies things quite a bit, as the poet morphs the elements of his landscape into "Malignant hags" and "a demons' ark".  It almost feels like too much gothic drapery too soon, but I think CAS redeems the work in the final line where the moon "Is borne along the mystic lands".  This completes a connection to myth established by the presence of cypress and pine trees in the opening stanza.