Selenique

Read "Selenique" at The Eldritch Dark:

http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/494/selenique

This poem from Clark Ashton Smith (CAS) was included in his collection Sandalwood (1925), although oddly enough it doesn't appear in the table of contents for that volume (presumably a printer's error).

Although "Selenique" has romantic overtones, the relationship between the narrator and his subject is remote at best:


Your hard immaculate beauty dulls the sharpness of desire,
And chills it to a changeless passion—
A frozen passion bright and pallid,
And clear as is the ghostly fervor of the moon's white fire.


Much of the visual imagery in this poem is derived from the notion of a pale moon and the clear white light associated with it.  It's not one of CAS' best poems, but it has a certain cold beauty nonetheless.