Monday, July 30, 2018

Companionship



This is another item from among Clark Ashton Smith's (CAS) early poems that were not published in his lifetime, so let's start with the text itself:


The summit won at last, I stopped,
          And turned to trace, through wood and dale,
Where, robed in pine, the hill-side dropped,
          My devious, toilsome, upward trail.

In air of midday, warm and still,
          Alone above the world I stood, 
And held the silence of the hill,
          That reared in rugged solitude.

Yet not alone, for overhead
          An eagle rose and skyward flew,
With wings against the sun outspread --
          A climber of the hills of blue.


This is a simple but evocative lyric of solitary adventure in nature that captures the phenomenon that one really never can be alone in a natural setting.  As an avid hiker myself, I've had many such incidents where the absence of other human beings makes one more sensitive to all of the other life that is around you, and indeed it is a type of welcome companionship.

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