Dolor of Dreams

Clark Ashton Smith

The shadow of a sorrow haunts the light,
And sense of dreamt, forgotten tragedy—
Surviving phantom of a memory
Slain by the dawn with shades of yesternight.

Like the blue pallor of the daylight moon,
Most clearly seen within the enshadowed stream,
The wan waste face of some dead, tragic dream
Peers from the twilight places of the noon.

Till, half-bemazed, I am as one who stands
Upon the summit of a misty hill,
And hears remote, one moment loud or still,
The dolor in the bells of blinded lands.

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