Weird Tales/Volume 12/Issue 4/Warning

Warning by Clark Ashton Smith

Hast heard the voices of the fen,

That softly sing a lethal rune

Where reeds have caught the fallen moon—

A song more sweet than conium is,

Or honey-blended cannabis,

To draw the dreaming feet of men

On ways where none goes forth again?

Beneath the closely woven grass,

The coiling syrt, more soft and deep

Than some divan where lovers sleep,

Is fain of all who wander there;

And arms that glimmer, vague and bare,

Beckon within the lone morass

Where only dead things dwell and pass.

Beware! the voices float and fall

Half-heard, and haply sweet to thee

As are the runes of memory

And murmurs of a voice foreknown

In days when love dwelt not alone:

Beware! for where the voices call,

Slow waters weave thy charnel pall.