Maya

Read "Maya" at The Eldritch Dark:

http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/322/maya

This sonnet from Clark Ashton Smith (CAS) takes a dim view of material reality, at least as it is experienced by most human beings:


Knowing all this a ghostly gossamer
In some eternal room of darkness spun;
A laughter of forgotten gods that were,
Echoing still in waste oblivion.


The opening octet has a sense of bitterness, but that tension is partially resolved with a more placid tone in the closing sestet:


But once again, as others, I have lent
Myself to earthly ways and earthly walls:
Illusion of illusion, fantasy
Of doubtful phantoms, nevermore to be
When slumber on the last delirium falls
And lulls the tossing shadows turbulent.


Those last few lines speak of the final escape from the mirages of earthly existence.  While release may come only from that grim exit, it is a solace nonetheless.