To Clark Ashton Smith, Esq., Upon His Phantastick Tales, Verses, Pictures, and Sculptures

A time-black tower against dim banks of cloud; Around its base the pathless, pressing wood. Shadow and silence, moss and mould, enshroud Grey, age-fell’d slabs that once as cromlechs stood. No fall of foot, no song of bird awakes The lethal aisles of sempiternal night, Tho’ oft with stir of wings the dense air shakes, As in the tower there glows a pallid light.

For here, apart, dwells one whose hands have wrought Strange eidola that chill the world with fear; Whose graven runes in tones of dread have taught What things beyond the star-gulfs lurk and leer. Dark Lord of Averoigne—whose windows stare On pits of dream no other gaze could bear!