Sublime Poetry of Clark Ashton Smith, the Emperor of Dreams

If you haven't yet enjoyed submersing yourself in the otherworldly rhyming and prose poetry of Clark Ashton Smith, well you're just letting the best things in life pass you by. Smith's writings are frequently amorous yet tinged with both an underlying schema of darkness and ennui quite at odds with the common Western conception of love poetry. They are not the sort one would share with a new paramour, and much like revenge, are best served cold. If you relish these offerings, I highly recommend ordering a rare copy of "The Last Oblivion" from Amazon.com and shedding this mortal coil for a journey to ethereal realms far beyond our hum-drum planet.

Love Malevolent I fain would love thee, but thy lips are fed With poison-honey, hived in a skull They seem like scarlet poppies, beautiful For delving roots, deep-clenched in the dead. Thine eyes are coloured like the nightshade-flow'r Blent in the opiate perfume of thy breath Are dreams, and purple sleep, and scented death For him that is thy lover for an hour. Mandragora, within the graveyard grown, Hath given thee its carnal root to eat, And vipers, born and nurstled in a tomb, From fawning mouths drip venom at thy feet; Yet from thy lethal lips and thine alone, Love would I drink, as dew from poison-bloom

Sorceror to His Love Within your arms I will forget The horror that Zimimar brings Between his vast and vampire wings From out his frozen oubliette. The terror born of ultimate space That gnaws with icy fang and fell The sucklings of the hag of hell, Shall flee the enchantment of your face. Ah, more than all my wizard art The circle our delight has drawn What evil phantoms thence have gone, What dreadful presences depart! Your arms are white, your arms are warm To hold me from the haunted air, And you alone are firm and fair Amid the darkly whirling storm