PROSE PASTELS

by Clark Ashton Smith

IV. The Lotus and the Moon

I stood with my beloved by the lotus pool, when the moon was round as the great ivory breast of a Titaness, and the flowers were full-blown and pale upon the water.

And I said to my beloved: "I would that thou shouldst love me well tonight: for never again shall there be a night like this, with the meeting of thee and me by this pool with flowers blown but not overblown."

But she demurred, and was perverse and loved me not as I would that she should love me.

And after several nights we stood again by the lotus pool, when the moon was hollow as an aging breast, and the petals of the flowers had fallen apart on the water.

And now my beloved was fain to love me well, and all was well between us. But in my heart I mourned for that other night, when the moon was round as the great ivory breast of a Titaness, and the flowers were full-blown and pale upon the water.

Amid dim hills that poison mosses blast,

Far from the lands and seas of our clean earth,

Dread nightmare shadows dance—obscenely cast

By twisted talons of archaean birth

On rows of slimy pillars stretching past

A daemon-fane that echoes with mad mirth.

And in that realm sane eyes may never see—

For black light streams from skies of ebony.

VII

On those queer mountains which hold back the horde

That lie in waiting in their mouldy graves,

Who groan and mumble to a hidden lord

Still waiting for the time-worn key that saves;

There dwells a watcher who can ill afford

To let invaders by those hoary caves.

But some day then may dreamers find the way

That leads down elfin-painted paths of gray.

VII

And past those unclean spires that ever lean

Above the windings of unpeopled streets;

And far beyond the walls and silver screen

That veils the secrets of those dim retreats,

A scarlet pathway leads that some have seen

In wildest visions that no mortal greets.

And down that dimming path in fearful flight

Queer beings squirm and hasten in the night.

High in the ebon skies on scaly wings

Dread batlike beasts soar past those towers gray

To peer in greedy longing at the things

Which sprawl in every twisted passageway.

And when their gruesome flight a shadow brings

The dwellers lift dim eyes above the clay.

But lidded bulbs close heavily once more;

They wait-for Sotho to unlatch the door!

Now, through the veil of troubled visions deep

Is draped to blind me to the secret ways

Leading through blackness to the realm of sleep

That haunts me all my jumbled nights and days,

I feel the dim path that will let me keep

That rendezvous in Yith where Sotho plays.

At last I see a glowing turret shine,

And I am coming, for the key is mine!