Clark Ashton Smith

January 13, 1893 – August 14, 1961

Duality

Thy soul is like a secret garden-close,
Where roots of cleft rnandragoras enwreathe;
Where bergamot and fumitory breathe,
And ivy winds its tower with the rose.

The lolling weeds of Lethe, green or wan,
Exhale their fatal languors on the light;
From out infernal grails of aconite
Poisons and dews are proffered to the dawn.

Here, when the moon's phantasmal fingers grope
To find the marbles of a hidden tomb,
There sings the cypress-perchèd nightingale;

And all the silver-bellied serpents pale
Their ruby eyes amid the blossoms ope,
To lift and listen in the ghostly gloom.
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