The Exile

Clark Ashton Smith

Against my heart your heart is closed; you bid me go:
What ways are left in all the world for love to know ?
Desolate oceans, and the light of lonely plains,
Dead moons that wander in the wastes of ice and snow—

These, these I fain would see, and find the splendid bourn
Of sunset, or the Brazen deserts of the morn,
That I might lose this ever-aching loneliness
In vaster solitude; and love be less forlorn,

Faring to seek with alien sun and alien star
The strange, the veiled horizons infinite and far;
Spaces of fire and night, the skies of steel and gold,
Or sunset-haunted seas where foamless islands are.

Printed from: eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/171
Printed on: March 28, 2024