Tuesday, August 7, 2018

A Sierran Sunrise


Read "A Sierran Sunrise" at The Eldritch Dark:


Clark Ashton Smith (CAS) dealt with this same theme in his poem "The Sunrise" which I discussed in an earlier blog post.  However, I think this current poem "A Sierran Sunrise" has a much more interesting take on the subject, since here we are presented with the idea of Nature as an artist:


The painting of the masterpiece behold
That every morn, before our careless eye,
Nature portrays, in crimson and in gold,
Upon the canvas of the earth and sky.


I think this is a powerful theme, since it articulates a deep appreciation for the ongoing cycles of the natural world while not attributing those phenomenon to a theistic agency.  My interpretation could be countered by a reading of the very last line:


Whence springs this dawn miraculous and grand.


One definition of the adjective "miraculous" does indeed imply divine intervention, but alternate definitions support a non-supernatural phenomenon, and I think it's clear that was CAS' intent with "A Sierran Sunrise". 

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