Ebony and Crystal/Dissonance

by Clark Ashton Smith

DISSONANCE

The harsh, brief sob of broken horns; the soundOf hammers, on some echoing sepulchre;Lutes in a thunderstorm; a dulcimerBy sudden drums and clamouring bugles drowned;Crackle of pearls, and gritting rubies, groundBeneath an iron heel; the heavy whirrOf battle wheels; a hungry leopard's purr,And sigh of swords withdrawing from the wound—:

All, all are in thy dreadful fugue, O Life,Thy dark, malign and monstrous music, spunIn hell, from a delirious Satan's dream!***O! dissonance primordial and supreme—The moan, the thunder, evermore at strife,Beneath the unheeding silence of the sun!