Friday, July 3, 2020

Vaticinations

Read "Vaticinations" at The Eldritch Dark:

http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/627/vaticinations

This is a small poem from Clark Ashton Smith (CAS) with a title that required me to do a dictionary look-up.  According to the OED, a vaticination is "a prediction of an oracular or inspired nature" or "the action or power of making prophecies".

With that in mind, each of these two stanzas take on an ominous cast, warning that "You shall he torn and blown as we (the leaves) are" and "you shall be calm as we (the boulders) are / And as tranquil and as still."

It's not a pleasant set of forecasts, but has the harsh note of fatalistic reality that CAS liked to inject into his writings, even those that dealt with alien worlds and fantastic settings of the imagination. 

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