Afterglow

This short poem from Clark Ashton Smith (CAS) was unpublished in his lifetime, and is not available on The Eldritch Dark, so here's the complete text:

Rays upward streaming from the hidden sun,

          Far-sunken in the realms of Night,

Brim all the West and render beautiful

          Each sunset cloud and height.

So may some life, gone far beyond our ken,

          Send backward flowing beams of light--

An afterglow from darkness that shall make

          Its skyline fair and bright.

Short and simple, these two stanzas speak to memory's power to imbue that which is gone with some semblance of life.  

As with many of the short poems from CAS that I have read, there is an immediacy to "Afterglow" that is not always present in his longer poetic works.  Which is not to say that I don't enjoy the longer works, but I do appreciate the range of CAS' talents in the poetic medium, and the fact that his verses are always worth reading,