Sandalwood

Read "Sandalwood" at The Eldritch Dark:

http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/670/sandalwood

It seems that this poem from Clark Ashton Smith (CAS) was originally intended as a proem to his published collection of the same name, but in the end was not included in that volume.  It certainly does seem like a perfect work to introduce a collection of verse from CAS:


My songs shall be as the perfume of sandalwood
Borne by a secret wind from form-lost irretrievable islands,
Where the hibiscus bowers of our love,
And the palaces of roseate marble,
With all their vine-caught pillars,
Were dreamt, but never builded.


The poem is addressed to "Thou, who hast chosen the world’s appointed way", thus creating something of a separation between the poet and his audience.  But CAS offers up his verse as a way to bridge that gap between reader and writer, and one can only hope that there will always bee readers ready to cross that bridge and discover the glories of which CAS writes.