Clark Ashton Smith

January 13, 1893 – August 14, 1961

Lethe (I)

I flow beneath the columns that upbear
The world, and all of heaven and limbo and hell;
Foamless I glide, where sounds nor glimmers tell
My motion nadirward: no moment's flare
Gives each to each the shapes that, unaware,
Convening upon my verge, essay the spell
Of essential night-thick waters that compel
One face from pain and rapture and despair.

The fruitless earth's denied and cheated sons
Meet here, where fruitful and unfruitful cease.
And when their lords, the mightier, hidden Ones,
Have drained all worlds, till being's wine is low,
Shall they not come, and from the oblivious flow
Drink at one draft a universe of peace ?
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