Ebony and Crystal: Poems in Verse and Prose
CLARK ASHTON SMITH
AUTHOR OF
The Star-Treader and Other Poems Odes and Sonnets
Copyright 1922 by CLARK ASHTON SMITH
Printed by the AUBURN JOURNAL Auburn, Calif.
DEDICATION
SAMUEL LOVEMAN
Who of us care to be present at the accouchment of the immortal? I think that we so attend who are first to take this book in our hands. A bold assertion, truly, and one demonstrable only in years remote from these; and—dust wages no war with dust. But it is one of those things that I should most “like to come back and see.”
Because he has lent himself the more innocently to the whispers of his subconscious daemon, and because he has set those murmurs to purer and harder crystal than we others, by so much the longer will the poems of Clark Ashton Smith endure. Here indeed is loot against the forays of moth and rust. Here we shall find none or little of the sentimental fat with which so much of our literature is larded. Rather shall one in Imagination’s “misty mid-region,” see elfin rubies burn at his feet, witch-fires glow in the nearer cypresses, and feel upon his brow a wind from the unknown. The brave hunters of fly-specks on Art’s cathedral windows will find little here for their trouble, and both the stupid and the over-sophisticated would best stare owlishly and pass by: here are neither kindergartens nor skyscrapers. But let him who is worthy by reason of his clear eye and unjaded heart wander across these borders of beauty and mystery and be glad.
GEORGE STERLING.
San Francisco, October 28, 1922.
Clark Ashton Smith
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ARABESQUE
BEYOND THE GREAT WALL
TO OMAR KHAYYAM
STRANGENESS
THE INFINITE QUEST
ROSA MYSTICA
THE NEREID
IN SATURN
IMPRESSION
TRIPLE ASPECT
DESOLATION
THE ORCHID
A FRAGMENT
CREPUSCLE
INFERNO
MIRRORS
BELATED LOVE
THE ABSENCE OF THE MUSE
DISSONANCE
TO NORA MAY FRENCH
IN LEMURIA
RECOMPENSE
EXOTIQUE
TRANSCENDENCE
SATIETY
THE MINISTERS OF LAW
COLDNESS
THE DESERT GARDEN
THE CRUCIFIXION OF EROS
THE EXILE
AVE ATQUE VALE
SOLUTION
THE TEARS OF LILITH
A PRECEPT
REMEMBERED LIGHT
SONG
HAUNTING
THE HIDDEN PARADISE
CLEOPATRA
ECSTASY
UNION
PSALM
IN NOVEMBER
SYMBOLS
THE SORROW OF THE WINDS
ARTEMIS
LOVE IS NOT YOURS, LOVE IS NOT MINE
THE CITY IN THE DESERT
THE MELANCHOLY POOL
THE MIRRORS OF BEAUTY
WINTER MOONLIGHT
TO THE BELOVED
REQUIESCAT
MIRAGE
INHERITANCE
AUTUMNAL
CHANT OF AUTUMN
ECHO OF MEMNON
TWILIGHT ON THE SNOW
IMAGE
THE REFUGE OF BEAUTY
NIGHTMARE
THE MUMMY
FORGETFULNESS
FLAMINGOES
THE CHIMAERA
SATAN UNREPENTANT
THE ABYSS TRIUMPHANT
THE MOTES
THE MEDUSA OF DESPAIR
LAUS MORTIS
THE GHOUL AND THE SERAPH
AT SUNRISE
THE LAND OF EVIL STARS
THE HARLOT OF THE WORLD
THE HOPE OF THE INFINITE
LOVE MALEVOLENT
PALMS
MEMNON AT MIDNIGHT
EIDOLON
THE KINGDOM OF SHADOWS
REQUIESCAT IN PACE
ALEXANDRINES
ASHES OF SUNSET
NOVEMBER TWILIGHT
SEPULTURE
QUEST
BEAUTY IMPLACABLE
A VISION OF LUCIFER
DESIRE OF VASTNESS
ANTICIPATION
A PSALM TO THE BEST BELOVED
THE WITCH IN THE GRAVEYARD
THE FLOWER-DEVIL
IMAGES
THE BLACK LAKE
VIGNETTES
A DREAM OF LETHE
THE CARAVAN
THE PRINCESS ALMEENA
ENNUI
THE STATUE OF SILENCE
REMOTENESS
THE MEMNONS OF THE NIGHT
THE GARDEN AND THE TOMB
IN COCAIGNE
THE LITANY OF THE SEVEN KISSES
FROM A LETTER
FROM THE CRYPTS OF MEMORY
A PHANTASY
THE DEMON, THE ANGEL, AND BEAUTY
THE SHADOWS
Transcriber’s Notes
