Monday, January 20, 2020

A Fragment

Read "A Fragment" at The Eldritch Dark:

http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/202/a-fragment

This poem from Clark Ashton Smith (CAS) presents a celebration of the narrator's own tomb, a morbidly fascinating idea expressed with delicate beauty:


On friezes of mine ancient fame
The cypress wrought its writhen shade,
And through the boughs the ocean made
Moresques of blue and fretted flame.


There's more than a little of the sensibility of Edgar Allan Poe in these lines, and yet CAS is clearly bringing his own voice to the subject matter.  Where Poe would have written about the tomb of a lost love (as in "Annabel Lee") CAS' unique angle makes for wonderful verses with a hint of sardonic humor born of the contemplation of one's own final resting place.

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