The Medusa Of The Skies

by

Clark Ashton Smith


Like a worm-fretted visage from the tomb,

The moon unswathes her hollow, shrunken head,

Launching such light as foulders on the dead

From pallid skies more death-like than the gloom.

Under her beams the breasted lands assume

Dead hues, and charnel shapes unceremented;

And shadows that towering sepulchers might shed

Move livid as the shadows on dials of doom.


On hills like tumuli, and waters mute,

A whiteness steals as of a world made still

When reptant Death at last rears absolute—

An earth now frozen by malefice of eyes

Aeonian dooms and realm-deep rigors fill—

The gaze of that Medusa of the skies.



Go Back