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    The Star Treader and Other Poems
    The Star Treader and Other Poems
    The Star Treader and Other Poems
    Ebook157 pages4 hours

    The Star Treader and Other Poems

    By Clark Ashton Smith

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    About this ebook

    This early volume of Clark Ashton Smith's poetry was published when he was nineteen. At that point, he achieved international acclaim, and an American critic dubbed him the "Keats of the Pacific." He moved for a short time in the same circles as Ambrose Bierce and Jack London. This collection of poetry is a sign of the talent to come.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPerennial Press
    Release dateMar 14, 2016
    ISBN9781531257309

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      Book preview

      The Star Treader and Other Poems - Clark Ashton Smith

      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 were I weary of the glare of these,

      I would tear out the eyes of light, and stand

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