Read "Medusa" at The Eldritch Dark:
This poem re-visits the theme of the Gorgon, which was also presented in "Sphinx and Medusa", which I read last month. I was very impressed by that earlier poem, and this one is another classic from Clark Ashton Smith (CAS). Especially notable this time around is how contemporary "Medusa" feels; it's very compatible with much of the weird poetry that is being produced here in the early twenty-first century (see for example the journal Spectral Realms).
These lines especially are very effective:
Her eyes are clouds wherein black lightnings lurk,
Yet, even as men that seek the glance of Life,
The gazers come, where, coiled and serpent-swift,
Those levins wait.
The lure and the terror of the mythical Gorgons are brilliantly captured therein.
This poem seem to anticipate CAS' later move into writing weird fiction (something that would not occur for many years after he wrote these lines). It's a good, solid mash-up of mythology and horror, a strain of literature of which CAS was a master.
These lines especially are very effective:
Her eyes are clouds wherein black lightnings lurk,
Yet, even as men that seek the glance of Life,
The gazers come, where, coiled and serpent-swift,
Those levins wait.
The lure and the terror of the mythical Gorgons are brilliantly captured therein.
This poem seem to anticipate CAS' later move into writing weird fiction (something that would not occur for many years after he wrote these lines). It's a good, solid mash-up of mythology and horror, a strain of literature of which CAS was a master.
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