The Hope of the Infinite

Read "The Hope of the Infinite" at The Eldritch Dark:

http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/238/the-hope-of-the-infinite

This sonnet from Clark Ashton Smith (CAS) has a wonderfully lyric quality, best captured right at the end of the poem:


                              ....And I have ta'en
From storming seas by sunset glorified,
Or from the dawn of ashen wastes and wide,
Some light re-gathered from the lamps that wane,
And promise of a translunary Spain
Where loves forgone and forfeit dreams abide.


The "promise of a translunary Spain" perhaps does not sound so exotic one hundred years after CAS wrote these lines, but if one imagines a legendary Spain, the land of Don Quixote and Moorish alcazars, then the vision takes on the flavor of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom, and all the fantastic experiences to be found in such an alien locale.