In Extremis

This short poem was unpublished in the lifetime of Clark Ashton Smith (CAS), and is not available on The Eldritch Dark, so here's the text itself:


Within Life's arc of light I stand

          That lyeth white and clear

To calmly watch upon each hand

          The Shadow creeping near.

Slowly the arc grows narrower

          The encroaching night draws on;

Black, pitiless its bastions rear,

          The light will soon be gone.

This grim little poem gets right to the heart of things, with a rather bleak vision of the inevitable destination of all human lives.  CAS apparently wrote this when he was still a teenager, demonstrating a sense of drama and morbidity that is not so unusual in creative young people.