Shadows

Read "Shadows" at The Eldritch Dark:

http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/501/shadows

Here we have another poem from Clark Ashton Smith (CAS) that was published in the pages of Weird Tales magazine (February 1930).  And it feels like something of a return to CAS' earlier poetry, where the cosmic and the weird were more prominent, as in these sample lines:


They shall move on the primal plains
In the broken thunder and rains;
They shall haply reel and soar
Where the red volcanoes roar
From the peaks of a blackening sun;


All of the rich description in this poem refers to shadows moving across the remnants of past civilizations and "the towns of a doomèd race".  Writing from such a cold, remote perspective is something CAS did brilliantly, and ultimately feels truer to his character than his generally lukewarm romantic verses.