The Last Oblivion

Read "The Last Oblivion" at The Eldritch Dark:

http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/286/the-last-oblivion

This sonnet from Clark Ashton Smith (CAS) brings together many of the best elements of his work in verse, combining strands of dark romance, alien exoticism, and the enormous scope of a cosmic imagination.

The poem's narrative provides an interesting twist, as the narrator initially expresses a ready willingness to forget a past love:


But haply wandering, worlds and cycles hence,
Through unforeseen fantastic avatars,
I shall forget you in the future stars,
And take of time an alien recompense.


In the closing sestet, he imagines a future incident wherein he catches the scent of an "unsuspected bloom / That lifts again the scarlet of your kiss;" the merest suggestion of that which once was.

I like the idea that a relationship readily abandoned is never without echoes throughout our lives, and to render that truism with such lyrical beauty is CAS' particular talent.