The Dream-Bridge

    All drear and barren seemed the hours,
    That passed rain-swept and tempest-blown.
    The dead leaves fell like brownish notes
    Within the rain's grey monotone.

    There came a lapse between the showers;
    The clouds grew rich with sunset gleams;
    Then o'er the sky a rainbow sprang -
    A bridge unto the Land of Dreams.

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 Price

Clark Ashton Smith, Simple Poetry

Averted Malefice

Clark Ashton Smith, Simple Poetry

The Summer Moon

Clark Ashton Smith, Simple Poetry

A Live-Oak Leaf

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.

The Bridge Of Cloud

Burn, O evening hearth, and waken
    Pleasant visions, as of old!
Though the house by winds be shaken,
    Safe I keep this room of gold!

Ah, no longer wizard Fancy
    Builds her castles in the air,
Luring me by necromancy
    Up the never-ending stair!

But, instead, she builds me bridges
    Over many a dark ravine,
Where beneath the gusty ridges
    Cataracts dash and roar unseen.

And I cross them, little heeding
    Blast of wind or torrent's roar,
As I follow the receding
    Footsteps that have gone before.

Naught avails the imploring gesture,
    Naught avails the cry of pain!
When I touch the flying vesture,
    'T is the gray robe of the rain.

Baffled I return, and, leaning
    O'er the parapets ...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

A Song Of Dreams

    A voice came to me from the night, and said,
    What profit hast thou in thy dreaming
    Of the years that are set
    And the years yet unrisen?
    Hast thou found them tillable lands?
    Is there fruit that thou canst pluck therein,
    Or any harvest to be mown?
    Shalt thou dig aught of gold from the mines of the past,
    Or trade for merchandise
    In the years where all is rotten?
    Are they a sea that will bring thee to any shore,
    Or a desert that vergeth upon aught but the waste?
    Shalt thou drink from the springs that are emptied,
    Or find sustenance in shadows?
    What value hath the future given thee?
    Is there aught in the days yet dark
    That thou canst hold with thy hands?
    Are they a fortress
    That w...

Clark Ashton Smith

The Rainbow Bridge.

Love and Hope and Youth, together
Travelling once in stormy weather,
Met a deep and gloomy tide,
Flowing swift and dark and wide.
'Twas named the river of Despair,
And many a wreck was floating there!
The urchins paused, with faces grave,
Debating how to cross the wave,
When lo! the curtain of the storm
Was severed, and the rainbow's form
Stood against the parting cloud
Emblem of peace on trouble's shroud!
Hope pointed to the signal flying,
And the three, their shoulders plying,
O'er the stream the light arch threw
A rainbow bridge of loveliest hue!
Now, laughing as they tripped it o'er,
They gayly sought the other shore:
But soon the hills began to frown,
And the bright sun went darkly down.
Though their step was light and fleet,
The ...

Samuel Griswold Goodrich

A Dream Of Beauty

    I dreamed that each most lovely, perfect thing
    That Nature hath, of sound, and form, and hue -
    The winds, the grass, the light-concentering dew,
    The gleam and swiftness of the sea-bird's wing;
    Blueness of sea and sky, and gold of storm
        Transmuted by the sunset, and the flame
    Of autumn-colored leaves, before me came,
    And, meeting, merged to one diviner form.

    Incarnate Beauty 'twas, whose spirit thrills
    Through glaucous ocean and the greener hills,
    And in the cloud-bewildered peaks is pent.
        Like some descended star she hovered o'er,
    But as I gazed, in doubt and wonderment,
        Mine eyes were dazzled, and I saw no more.

Clark Ashton Smith

A Dream.

I had a dream, a strange, wild dream,
Said a dear voice at early light;
And even yet its shadows seem
To linger in my waking sight.

Earth, green with spring, and fresh with dew,
And bright with morn, before me stood;
And airs just wakened softly blew
On the young blossoms of the wood.

Birds sang within the sprouting shade,
Bees hummed amid the whispering grass,
And children prattled as they played
Beside the rivulet's dimpling glass

Fast climbed the sun: the flowers were flown,
There played no children in the glen;
For some were gone, and some were grown
To blooming dames and bearded men.

'Twas noon, 'twas summer: I beheld
Woods darkening in the flush of day,
And that bright rivulet spread and swelled,
A mighty stream, wi...

William Cullen Bryant

The Cloud-Islands

    What islands marvellous are these,
    That gem the sunset's tides of light -
    Opals aglow in saffron seas?
    How beautiful they lie, and bright,
    Like some new-found Hesperides!

    What varied, changing magic hues
    Tint gorgeously each shore and hill!
    What blazing, vivid golds and blues
    Their seaward winding valleys fill!
    What amethysts their peaks suffuse!

    Close held by curving arms of land
    That out within the ocean reach,
    I mark a faery city stand,
    Set high upon a sloping beach
    That burns with fire of shimmering sand.

    Of sunset-light is formed each wall;
    Each dome a rainbow-bubble seems;
    And every spire that towers tall
    A ray of golden moonlight gleams;
    Of o...

Clark Ashton Smith