The Fugitives

    O fugitive fragrances
    That tremble heavenward
    Unceasing, or if ye linger,
    Halt but as memories
    On the verge of forgetfulness,
    Why must ye pass so fleetly
    On wings that are less than wind,
    To a death unknowable?
    Soon ye are gone, and the air
    Forgets your faint unrest
    In the garden's breathlessness,
    Where fall the snows of silence.

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 Mad Wind

Clark Ashton Smith, Simple Poetry

The Dream-Bridge

Clark Ashton Smith, Simple Poetry

Finis

Clark Ashton Smith, Simple Poetry

Fairy Lanterns

Clark Ashton Smith, Simple Poetry

English

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The Fugitive

    Flying his hair and his eyes averse,
    Fleet are his feet and his heart apart.
    How could our song his charms rehearse?
    Fleet are his feet and his heart apart.

    High on a down we found him last,
    Shy as a hare, he fled as fast;
    How could we clasp him or ever he passed?
    Fleet are his feet and his heart apart.

    How could we cling to his limbs that shone,
    Ravish his cheeks' red gonfalon,
    Or the wild-skin cloak that he had on?
    Fleet are his feet and his heart apart.

    For the wind of his feet still straightly shaping,
    He loosed at our breasts from his eyes escaping
    One crooked swift glance like a javelin leaping.
    Fleet are his feet and his heart apart.

    And his feet passed over the ...

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The Fugitive

In the hush of early even
The clouds came flocking over,
Till the last wind fell from heaven
And no bird cried.

Darkly the clouds were flocking,
Shadows moved and deepened,
Then paused; the poplar's rocking
Ceased; the light hung still

Like a painted thing, and deadly.
Then from the cloud's side flickered
Sharp lightning, thrusting madly
At the cowering fields.

Thrice the fierce cloud lighten'd,
Down the hill slow thunder trembled;
Day in her cave grew frightened,
Crept away, and died.

John Frederick Freeman

The Night Forest

    Incumbent seemingly
    On the jagged points of peaks
    That end the visible west,
    The rounded moon yet floods
    The valleys hitherward
    With fall of torrential light,
    Ere from the overmost
    Aggressive mountain-cusp,
    She slip to the lower dark.
    But here, on an eastward slope
    Pointed and thick with its pine,
    The forest scarcely remembers
    Her light that is gone as a vision
    Or ecstasy too poignant
    And perilous for duration.
    Withdrawn in what darker web
    Or dimension of dream I know not,
    In silence pre-occupied
    And solemnest rectitude
    The pines uprear, and no sigh
    For the rapture of moonlight past,
    Comes from their bosom of boughs.
    Far in their secrecy

Clark Ashton Smith

The Wind And The Moon

    Oh, list to the wind of the night, oh, hark,
    How it shrieks as it goes on its hurrying quest!
    Forever its voice is a voice of the dark,
    Forever its voice is a voice of unrest.
    Oh, list to the pines as they shiver and sway
    'Neath the ceaseless beat of its myriad wings -
    How they moan and they sob like living things
    That cry in the darkness for light and day!
    Now bend they low as the wind mounts higher,
    And its eerie voice comes piercingly,
    Like the plaint of humanity's misery,
    And its burden of vain desire.
    Now to a sad, tense whisper it fails,
    Then wildly and madly it raves and it wails.

    Oh, the night is filled with its sob and its shriek,
    Its weird and its restless, yearning cry,
    As it ...

Clark Ashton Smith

The Fugitive.

The air is perfumed with the morning's fresh breeze,
From the bush peer the sunbeams all purple and bright,
While they gleam through the clefts of the dark-waving trees,
And the cloud-crested mountains are golden with light.

With joyful, melodious, ravishing, strain,
The lark, as he wakens, salutes the glad sun,
Who glows in the arms of Aurora again,
And blissfully smiling, his race 'gins to run.

    All hail, light of day!
    Thy sweet gushing ray
Pours down its soft warmth over pasture and field;
    With hues silver-tinged
    The meadows are fringed,
And numberless suns in the dewdrop revealed.

    Young Nature invades
    The whispering shades,
    Displaying each ravishing charm;
    The soft zephyr blows,
    And kisses the ...

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The Escape

Like one who runs
Fearful at night, he knows not why,
Dreading the loneliness, yet shuns
The highway's casual company;

Wherefore he hastes,
The friendly gloom of ancient trees
Unheeding, and the shining wastes
Lying broad and quiet as the seas;

The beauty of night
Hating for very fear, until
Beyond the bend a lowly light
Beams single from a lowly sill;

And the poor fool,
Flying the sacred, solemn dark,
Leaves gladly the large, cool
Night for that serviceable spark;

And thankful then
To have 'scaped the peril of the way,
Turns not his timid steps again
That night, but waits the common day;--

So I, as weak,
Have fled the great hills of Thy love,
Too faint to hear what Thou dost speak,
Too feeble wi...

John Frederick Freeman