Wednesday, October 14, 2020

To One Absent

Read "To One Absent" at The Eldritch Dark:


This poem from Clark Ashton Smith (CAS) draws strong inspiration from classical Greek mythology, a theme that is found throughout his poetic corpus:


Return, to take this empty hand
And lead me in that longed-for land
Where still the years of Saturn roam;
Where satyrs rob the purpling vine
And the green-fruited laurels shine
Against the siren-cloven foam.


"To One Absent" expresses the yearning for a return to the glorious splendor of myth and imagination, all in the company of "The sorceress of a secret garth".  It has a wistful sense of that which has been lost (or perhaps was never found at all) but the very strength of creative inventiveness that runs through these lines can be taken on their own merit as steps in that journey of return.

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