The Spiritual Dawn

Clark Ashton Smith

(Translated "from the French of Charles Pierre Baudelaire")

When breaks upon the debauchee the sworded morn,
Leagued with the Ideal that gnaws as gnaws a mordant worm,
Some dark and vengeful mystery fulfills its term,
And a grieving angel from the sodden beast is born.

In their attainless blue the spiritual skies,
For the downfallen dreamer prostrate in the pit,
Open and gape with the gulf's allurement infinite.
O dear and pure and lucid Goddess, in like wise,

Above the foully fuming wrack of orgies stale,
Thy memory more clear, more roseate and fair
Floats on my vision and reveals a larger air;

The sun has blackened all the blazing tapers pale;
And thus, O soul resplendent, evermore prevailing,
Thy phantom is the peer of the far sun unfailing.

Printed from: eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/544
Printed on: March 29, 2024