Wednesday, January 19, 2022

Lost Farmsteads



Here is another poem from Clark Ashton Smith (CAS) that was unpublished in his lifetime, and is not available on The Eldritch Dark, so here's the full text:


I love the fields and gardens
invaded by the wilderness,
retaken by weeds and herbs
that open their faithful flowerets
full of perfumes and honies.

I love the desolate apple-orchards --
the dying trees
lined with lichens --
I love the vines in the fruit-trees -- 
the mistletoe in the pear-tops.

I find, in some woodland bower,
the stones of a fallen fire-place
where springs a forsaken rose-bush
to which from all the country-side
voyage the vivid humming-birds.

At the edge of the cat-tails,
I know an ancient shed
with moss-grown reddish wall --
a house for vermin and fungi,
a factory of cobwebs.

Enisled among the bramble thickets,
I have seen a pathless meadow
where an aged quince-tree
bequeathes its wintry fruit
to the water of quagmires.

I have seen in the twilight,
beside a roofless pavement,
the flowers of the plum-tree whiten
like a pale phantom
called up by some grey magician.

And when the flickering bats
veer though the evenfall,
I scent the flying petals
of former life
in the mystic boughs.


CAS also wrote a Spanish version of this poem entitled "Las Alquerías perdidas".

It's unusual to find a poem from CAS that includes the phrase "I love"; for although he wrote quite a number of love lyrics, he rarely used the word itself in such direct terms.  

Of course, "Lost Farmsteads" is not a love poem, but a more of a pastoral musing on time passing.  Even when tackling such bucolic subject matter, CAS still manages to find a place for the weird imagery that he is known for:


I have seen in the twilight,
beside a roofless pavement,
the flowers of the plum-tree whiten
like a pale phantom
called up by some grey magician.


"Lost Farmsteads" is not one of CAS' greatest verses, but it has a quiet charm all its own.

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