Sunday, October 13, 2019

The Absence of the Muse

Read "The Absence of the Muse" at The Eldritch Dark:

http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/4/the-absence-of-the-muse

This sonnet is a beautiful mediation on the artist in search of his muse, and given that the author is Clark Ashton Smith (CAS), it's no wonder that the poem is filled with gorgeous imagery of exotic and alien worlds.  

In a number of ways, this poem feels something like a preview of The Hashish-Eater, CAS' famous long poem of incredible imaginative journeying.  Lines like the following could almost be lifted directly from that great work:


Hearing the gongs of dire, occult command,
And bugles blown from strand to unknown strand
Of continents embattled in old wars
That primal kings began?


I'm reading more-or-less chronologically through CAS' poetry, and The Hashish-Eater is coming up fairly soon.  Reading "The Absence of the Muse" has contributed greatly to my anticipation!

No comments:

Post a Comment