Prose Poetry, Plays and Music

By Clark Ashton Smith

Jump To:  

A

“The desert of Soom is said to lie at the world's unchartable extreme, between the lands that are little known and those that are scarcely… ”

B

“In a land where weirdness and mystery had strongly leagued themselves with eternal desolation, the lake was out-poured at an undiscoverable date of elder aeons,… ”

C

“My dreams are like a caravan that departed long ago, with tumult of intrepid banners and spears, and the clamour of bugles and brave, adventurous… ”

“Ling Yang, the poet, sits all day in his hut among the willows by the river-side, and dreams of the Lady Moy. Spring and the… ”

“{Prose version of "The City of Destruction", after Smith's unfinished poem of that name; fragment.} The city is surrounded with ramparts like a mountain-range… ”

“Scene: The catacombs of the ancient city of Oomal. A new corpse has been deposited along-side a skeleton, which, from its mouldiness and worm-picked appearance,… ”

“Raptly as one who would divine the perilous eyes of Sleep, and the dreams and mysteries which lurk therein, I sought to fathom the gulf-enclosing… ”

D

“O Fairest, O dearest, to what shall I liken thy days? Methinks are as precious gems, as pearls and amethysts, which, from a broken string,… ”

“Of the Demon who standeth or walketh always with me at my left hand, I asked: "Hast thou seen Beauty? Her that meseemeth was the… ”

“The desert of Soom is said to lie at the world's unchartable extreme, between the lands that are little known and those that are scarcely… ”

“In the quest of her whom I had lost, I came at length to the shores of Lethe, under the vault of an immense, empty,… ”

E

“In the alcove whose curtains are cloth-of-gold, and whose pillars are fluted sapphire, reclines the emperor Chan, on his couch of ebony set with opals… ”

F

“In a basin of porphyry, at the summit of a pillar of serpentine, the thing has existed from primeval time, in the garden of the… ”

“The child Natha lived with his father and mother in a little house not far from the verge of the great jungle. Every day he… ”

“Will you not join me in Atlantis, where we will go down through streets of blue and yellow marble to the wharves of orichalch, and… ”

“Aeons of aeons ago, in an epoch whose marvelous worlds have crumbled, and whose mighty suns are less than shadow, I dwelt in a star… ”

“Aeons of aeons ago, in an epoch whose marvellous worlds have crumbled, and whose mighty suns are less than shadow, I dwelt in a star… ”

“I returned on a winter day to the mountain stream, upon whose banks we roamed so long ago when the rich azaleas leaned above it… ”

G

“I know a garden of flowers-flowers lovely and marvellous and multiform as the orchids of far, exotic worlds-as the flowers of manifold petal, whose colours… ”

I

“In the temple of the city of Morm, which lies between the desert and the sea, are two images of thegod Amanon,- a bronze image… ”

“Thy tears are not as mine: Thou weepest as a green fountain among palms and roses, with lightly falling drops that bedew the flowery turf.… ”

“It was a windless afternoon of April, beneath skies that were tender as the smile of love, when we went forth, you and I, to… ”

L

“It lies with in a land that is only seen by the sun and the moon and the horizon-questing stars. The sky-wrestled mountains, like sentries… ”

“It is a land of fruitful palms and flowering myrtles, with winds that are gentle as the sighs of woman, and pearling fountains delicious as… ”

“I
I kiss thy hands-thy hands. whose fingers are delicate and the pale as the petals of the white lotus.II
I kiss thy hair, which has the… ”

“I stood with my beloved in the lotus pool, when the moon was round as the great ivory breast of a Titaness, and the flowers… ”

M

“Ringed with a bronze horizon, which, at a point immensely remote, seems welded with the blue brilliance of a sky of steel, they oppose the… ”

“From the nethermost profound of slumber, from a gulf beyond the sun and stars that illume the Lethean shoals and the vague lands of somnolent… ”

“The world has a thousand poisons, thin or potent, honey-like or nauseous, quick or languid, corrosive and deadly, or captious and deceptive and narcotic. There… ”

“I sought the cloister of the dead, when, fallen athwart the funereal glooms of yew and cypress, the sunset wrought a phantom flush upon the… ”

“Will you not join me in Atlantis, where we will go down through streets of blue and yellow marble to the wharves of orichalch, and… ”

“Too far away is her wan and mortal face, and too remote are the snows of her lethal breast, for mine eyes to behold them… ”

N

“Splenetic, pale Narcissus, in the green dead depth of some rotting pool: thou seest thine image drown and re-emmerge, beneath the shifting iridescence of corruption,… ”

O

“{March 12, 1928}Hast thou desired to love wherein the fervor of the mountain flames of autumn is mingled with all the tenderness of half-unfolded… ”

“December 18, 1929An osprey who had sighted a plump turbot glided to the surface of the waves; and at that very same moment a… ”

P

“In all the lands of Illarion, from mountain-valleys rimmed with unmelting snow, to the great cliffs of sand whose reflex darkens a sleepy, tepid sea,… ”

“"Go not too often among ruins," said the Daemon in one of his rare moods of admonitory confidence. "For there is a strangeness in the… ”

“"Go not too often among ruins", said the Demon, in one of his infrequent hours of admonitory confidence. "For there is a strangeness in the… ”

“I have dreamt of an unknown land-a land remote in ulterior time, and alien space not ascertainable; the desert of a long-completed past, upon which… ”

“I would rather look upon thy face than upon the gardens of Atlantis, in the setting of a hyacinthine sun than necromancers have summoned.I would… ”

“From her balcony of pearl, the princess Almeena, clad in a gown of irisated silk, with her long and sable locks unbound, gazes toward the… ”

R

“There are days when all the beauty of the world is dim and strange; when the sunlight about me seems to fall on a land… ”

S

“There were many shadows in the palace of Augusthes, About the silver throne that had blackened beneath the invisible passing of ages, they fell from… ”

“I saw a statue, carven I knew not of what substance, nor with what form or feature, because of the manifold draper of black which… ”

“I saw the declivous latter sunlight fall and glitter upon the sepulchre of one whose immomentous name was holden awhile from Oblivion by the deeply-trenched… ”

T

“Tell me many tales, O benign maleficent daemon, but tell me none that I have ever heard or have even dreamt of otherwise than obscurely… ”

“Nasiphra the philosopher had sought through many years and in many lands for the fabled touch-stone, which was said to reveal the true nature of… ”

“"Stranger, where goest thou, in the sad raiment of a pilgrim, with shattered sandals retaining the dustand mire of so many devious ways? With thy… ”

U

“It is a land of fruitful palms and flowering myrtles, with winds that are gentle as the sighs of women, and pearling fountains delicious as… ”

V

“Surely, beyond the mountains there is peace-beyond the mountains that lie so blue and still at the world's extreme. Such ancient calm, such infinite quietude… ”

Jump To:  

Plays

“{1951} PERSONAE Smaragad, King of YorosQueen SomelisGaleor, a wandering poet and lute-player, guest of SmaragadNatanasna, a necromancerBaltea, tiring-woman to SomelisKalguth,… ”

“{September 17, 1922; fragment}



A grassy meadow, by a lily-laden stream, within sight of Alnephrom, the capitol of Poseidions. Aviol, a girl of twelve, and the… ”

“SCENE: The house of a village priest, at midnight. The priest himself is revealed in prayer before the crucifix, besides a table piled with Commentaries… ”

Music

“Sheet Music, Time 1:15. Dedicated to Roland Hayes. About 1920… ”

“Sheet music, Chorus for Womens' Voices with Piano Accompaniment… ”

“Sheet music,Sep 1915… ”

Top of Page