



Produced by David Starner, Matthew Wheaton and the Online
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    THE STAR-TREADER AND OTHER POEMS

    BY

    CLARK ASHTON SMITH


    A. M. ROBERTSON

    STOCKTON STREET AT UNION SQUARE
    SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

    MCMXII


    COPYRIGHT 1912
    BY
    A. M. ROBERTSON


    Philopolis Press
    San Francisco


    TO MY MOTHER




    CONTENTS


    NERO
    CHANT TO SIRIUS
    THE STAR-TREADER
    THE MORNING POOL
    THE NIGHT FOREST
    THE MAD WIND
    SONG TO OBLIVION
    MEDUSA
    ODE TO THE ABYSS
    THE SOUL OF THE SEA
    THE BUTTERFLY
    THE PRICE
    THE MYSTIC MEANING
    ODE TO MUSIC
    THE LAST NIGHT
    ODE ON IMAGINATION
    THE WIND AND THE MOON
    LAMENT OF THE STARS
    THE MAZE OF SLEEP
    THE WINDS
    THE MASK OF FORSAKEN GODS
    A SUNSET
    THE CLOUD-ISLANDS
    THE SNOW-BLOSSOMS
    THE SUMMER MOON
    THE RETURN OF HYPERION
    LETHE
    ATLANTIS
    THE UNREVEALED
    THE ELDRITCH DARK
    THE CHERRY SNOWS
    FAIRY LANTERNS
    NIRVANA
    THE NEMESIS OF SUNS
    WHITE DEATH
    RETROSPECT AND FORECAST
    SHADOW OF NIGHTMARE
    THE SONG OF A COMET
    THE RETRIBUTION
    TO THE DARKNESS
    A DREAM OF BEAUTY
    THE DREAM BRIDGE
    A LIVE-OAK LEAF
    PINE NEEDLES
    TO THE SUN
    THE FUGITIVES
    AVERTED MALEFICE
    THE MEDUSA OF THE SKIES
    A DEAD CITY
    THE SONG OF THE STARS
    COPAN
    A SONG OF DREAMS
    THE BALANCE
    SATURN
    FINIS




    NERO


    This Rome, that was the toil of many men,
    The consummation of laborious years--
    Fulfilment's crown to visions of the dead,
    And image of the wide desire of kings--
    Is made my darkling dream's effulgency,
    Fuel of vision, brief embodiment
    Of wandering will, and wastage of the strong
    Fierce ecstacy of one tremendous hour,
    When ages piled on ages were a flame
    To all the years behind, and years to be.

    Yet any sunset were as much as this,
    Save for the music forced by hands of fire
    From out the hard strait silences which bind
    Dull Matter's tongueless mouth--a music pierced
    With the tense voice of Life, more quick to cry
    Its agony--and save that I believed
    The radiance redder for the blood of men.
    Destruction hastens and intensifies
    The process that is Beauty, manifests
    Ranges of form unknown before, and gives
    Motion and voice and hue where otherwise
    Bleak inexpressiveness had leveled all.

    If one create, there is the lengthy toil;
    The laboured years and days league tow'rd an end
    Less than the measure of desire, mayhap,
    After the sure consuming of all strength,
    And strain of faculties that otherwhere
    Were loosed upon enjoyment; and at last
    Remains to one capacity nor power
    For pleasure in the thing that he hath made.
    But on destruction hangs but little use
    Of time or faculty, but all is turned
    To the one purpose, unobstructed, pure,
    Of sensuous rapture and observant joy;
    And from the intensities of death and ruin,
    One draws a heightened and completer life,
    And both extends and vindicates himself.

    I would I were a god, with all the scope
    Of attributes that are the essential core
    Of godhead, and its visibility.
    I am but emperor, and hold awhile
    The power to hasten Death upon his way,
    And cry a halt to worn and lagging Life
    For others, but for mine own self may not
    Delay the one, nor bid the other speed.
    There have been many kings, and they are dead,
    And have no power in death save what the wind
    Confers upon their blown and brainless dust
    To vex the eyeballs of posterity.
    But were I god, I would be overlord
    Of many kings, and were as breath to guide
    Their dust of destiny. And were I god,
    Exempt from this mortality which clogs
    Perception, and clear exercise of will,
    What rapture it would be, if but to watch
    Destruction crouching at the back of Time,
    The tongueless dooms which dog the travelling suns;
    The vampire Silence at the breast of worlds,
    Fire without light that gnaws the base of things,
    And Lethe's mounting tide, that rots the stone
    Of fundamental spheres. This were enough
    Till such time as the dazzled wings of will
    Came up with power's accession, scarcely felt
    For very suddenness. Then would I urge
    The strong contention and conflicting might
    Of chaos and creation, matching them,
    Those immemorial powers inimical,
    And all their stars and gulfs subservient--
    Dynasts of Time, and anarchs of the dark--
    In closer war reverseless; and would set
    New discord at the universal core,
    A Samson-principle to bring it down
    In one magnificence of ruin. Yea,
    The monster Chaos were mine unleashed hound,
    And all my power Destruction's own right arm!

    I would exult to mark the smouldering stars
    Renew beneath my breath their elder fire,
    And feed upon themselves to nothingness.
    The might of suns, slow-paced with swinging weight
    Of myriad worlds, were made at my desire
    One long rapidity of roaring light,
    Through which the voice of Life were audible,
    And singing of the immemorial dead
    Whose dust is loosened into vaporous wings
    With soaring wrack of systems ruinous.
    And