Venus

Read "Venus" at The Eldritch Dark:

http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/629/venus

This short poem from Clark Ashton Smith (CAS) has an emotional authenticity that is not always present in his chillier (yet still wonderful) works rendered in a more formal, grand manner.

The association of the poem's subject with a Roman goddess is nothing highly original in the realm of romantic poetry, but CAS approaches that familiar idea with fresh invention:


But now thou hast departed, many a tear
Bedims her glory when she goes upon
The ways where thou art gone—
Westward and autumnward in silence drawn.


That closing line is indelible - it captures the essences of departure, decline, and finality with breathtaking economy of diction.