Fairy Lanterns

    'Tis said these blossom-lanterns light
    The elves upon their midnight way;
    That fairy toil and elfin play
    Receive their beams of magic white.

    I marvel not if it be true;
    I know this flower has lighted me
    Nearer to Beauty's mystery,
    And past the veils of secrets new.

Clark Ashton Smith

Clark Ashton Smith was an American writer and poet, best known for his contributions to the genres of horror, fantasy, and science fiction. He was a member of the Lovecraft Circle, a group of writers around H.P. Lovecraft. Smith's work was characterized by rich, fantastical imagery and vocabulary. He is considered one of the major writers of weird fiction and a key figure in early American speculative fiction.

Clark Ashton Smith

The Wind And The Moon

Clark Ashton Smith, Simple Poetry

Copan

Clark Ashton Smith, Simple Poetry

The Summer Moon

Clark Ashton Smith, Simple Poetry

Nero

Clark Ashton Smith, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

On Midsummer Night

I.

All the poppies in their beds
Nodding crumpled crimson heads;
And the larkspurs, in whose ears
Twilight hangs, like twinkling tears,
Sleepy jewels of the rain;
All the violets, that strain
Eyes of amethystine gleam;
And the clover-blooms that dream
With pink baby fists closed tight,
They can hear upon this night,
Noiseless as the moon's white light,
Footsteps and the glimmering flight,
Shimmering flight,
Of the Fairies

II.

Every sturdy four-o'clock,
In its variegated frock;
Every slender sweet-pea, too,
In its hood of pearly hue;
Every primrose pale that dozes
By the wall and slow uncloses
A sweet mouth of dewy dawn
In a little silken yawn,
On this night of silvery sheen,
They can see the Fairy ...

Madison Julius Cawein

Birth-Night Of The Humming Birds.

I.

    I'll tell you a Fairy Tale that's new:
How the merry Elves o'er the ocean flew
From the Emerald isle to this far-off shore,
As they were wont in the days of yore;
And played their pranks one moonlit night,
Where the zephyrs alone could see the sight.


II.

    Ere the Old world yet had found the New,
The fairies oft in their frolics flew
To the fragrant isles of the Caribbee--
Bright bosom-gems of a golden sea.
Too dark was the film of the Indian's eye,
These gossamer sprites to suspect or spy,--
So they danced 'mid the spicy groves unseen,
And mad were their merry pranks, I ween;
For the fairies, like other discreet little elves,
Are freest and fondest when all by themselves.
No thought had they that in after time,
...

Samuel Griswold Goodrich

Elfin

I.

When wildflower blue and wildflower white
The wildflowers lay their heads together,
And the moon-moth glimmers along the night,
And the wandering firefly flares its light,
And the full moon rises broad and bright,
Then, then it is elfin weather.

II.

And fern and flower on top of the hill
Are a fairy wood where the fairies camp;
And there, to the pipe of the cricket shrill,
And the owl's bassoon or the whippoorwill,
They whirl their wildest and trip their fill
By the light of the glowworm's lamp.

III.

And the green tree-toad and the katydid
Are the henchmen set to guard their dance;
At whose cry they creep 'neath the dewy lid
Of a violet's eye, or close lie hid
In a bluebell's ear, if a mortal 'mid
The moonli...

Madison Julius Cawein

The World Of Faery

I.

When in the pansy-purpled stain
Of sunset one far star is seen,
Like some bright drop of rain,
Out of the forest, deep and green,
O'er me at Spirit seems to lean,
The fairest of her train.

II.

The Spirit, dowered with fadeless youth,
Of Lay and Legend, young as when,
Close to her side, in sooth,
She led me from the marts of men,
A child, into her world, which then
To me was true as truth.

III.

Her hair is like the silken husk
That holds the corn, and glints and glows;
Her brow is white as tusk;
Her body like a wilding rose,
And through her gossamer raiment shows
Like starlight closed in musk.

IV.

She smiles at me; she nods at me;
And by her looks I am beguiled
Into the mystery...

Madison Julius Cawein

There Are Fairies

I.

There are fairies, bright of eye,
Who the wildflowers' warders are:
Ouphes that chase the firefly;
Elves that ride the shooting star;
Fays who in a cobweb lie,
Swinging on a moonbeam-bar,
Or who harness bumblebees,
Grumbling on the clover leas,
To a blossom or a breeze,
That's their fairy car.
If you care, you too may see
There are fairies verily
There are fairies.

II.

There are fairies. I could swear
I have seen them busy where
Rose leaves loose their scented hair,
In the moonlight weaving weaving
Out of starshine and the dew
Glinting gown and shimmering shoe;
Or within a glow-worm lair
From the dark earth slowly heaving
Mushrooms whiter than the moon,
On whose tops they sit and croon,
With the...

Madison Julius Cawein

Faerie.

From the oped lattice glance once more abroad
While the ethereal moontide bathes with light
Hill, stream, and garden, and white-winding road.


All gracious myths born of the shadowy night
Recur, and hover in fantastic guise,
Airy and vague, before the drowsy sight.


On yonder soft gray hill Endymion lies
In rosy slumber, and the moonlit air
Breathes kisses on his cheeks and lips and eyes.


'Twixt bush and bush gleam flower-white limbs, left bare,
Of huntress-nymphs, and flying raiment thin,
Vanishing faces, and bright floating hair.


The quaint midsummer fairies and their kin,
Gnomes, elves, and trolls, on blossom, branch, and grass
Gambol and dance, and winding out and in


Leave circles of spun dew where'er th...

Emma Lazarus