Clark Ashton Smith

January 13, 1893 – August 14, 1961

To George Sterling (His)

His song shall waken the dull-sleeping throng
That dreams of sullen and of earth-bound things;
He soars with Beauty where the Eternal sings,
And the Deep's insuperable chants prolong
The everlasting sovereignties of Song-
Where caverned thunder from the mountains flings
Its dirge o'er the dust of crumbled thrones and kings,
He stands defiant of Oblivion's wrong.

But ampler Liberty, divine and strange,
Hums in the song of his Promethean lyre,
An echo of lost Time's immortal ones;
The tangled webs of mortal Death and Change
Perish before his chanting lyric fire
That gleams in the paling light of sinking suns.
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