Zothique by Clark Ashton Smith

Nov 22

Nov 22 Zothique by Clark Ashton Smith

One of the most overlooked and under appreciated authors of the early days of Weird Tales and other pulp science fiction / fantasy / horror magazines. Here’s a sample of his poetry and links to his works.

He who has trod the shadows of Zothique
And looked upon the coal-red sun oblique,
Henceforth returns to no anterior land,
But haunts a latter coast
Where cities crumble in the black sea-sand

And dead gods drink the brine.

He who has known the gardens of Zothique
Where bleed the fruits torn by the simorgh’s beak,
Savors no fruit of greener hemispheres:
In arbors uttermost,
In sunset cycles of the sombering years,
He sips an aramanth wine.

He who has loved the wild girls of Zothique
Shall come not back a gentler love to seek,
Nor know the vampire’s from the lover’s kiss:
For him the scarlet ghost
Of Lilith from time’s last necropolis
Rears amorous and malign.

He who has sailed in galleys of Zothique
And seen the looming of strange spire and peak,
Must face again the sorcerer-sent typhoon.
And take the steerer’s post
On far-poured oceans by the shifted moon
Or the re-shapen Sign.”

. . .

“Clark Ashton Smith (January 13, 1893 – August 14, 1961) was an American writer and artist. He achieved early local recognition… for traditional verse in the vein of Swinburne. As a poet, Smith is grouped with the West Coast Romantics alongside Joaquin Miller, Sterling, and Nora May French and remembered as ‘The Last of the Great Romantics’ and ‘The Bard of Auburn’. Smith's work was praised by his contemporaries. H. P. Lovecraft stated that ‘in sheer daemonic strangeness and fertility of conception, Clark Ashton Smith is perhaps unexcelled’, and Ray Bradbury said that Smith ‘filled my mind with incredible worlds, impossibly beautiful cities, and still more fantastic creatures’…Smith was one of ‘the big three of Weird Tales, with Robert E. Howard and H. P. Lovecraft…’” -- Wikipedia

Clark Ashton Smith at the Faded Page.

Clark Ashton Smith at Project Gutenberg.

Out Of Space And Time

Tales Of Science And Sorcery

The Star Treader And Other Poems