Ebony and Crystal/Palms

by Clark Ashton Smith

PALMS

Palms in the sunset of a languid summer land!Sculpture of living green, on dreamy scarlet lightDividing as a wall the twilight from the night!How magically still and luminous they stand,

Inclining fretted leaves above some red lagoon—Careless alike, in mystic and immense repose,Of the flamingo-coloured, flying sun that goes,Or the slow coming of the lion-coloured moon.