Ebony and Crystal/The Land of Evil Stars

by Clark Ashton Smith

THE LAND OF EVIL STARS

'Neath blue days, and gold, and green,
Blooms the glorious land serene,—
Flaming shields of dawns between;
And the rapt white flowers suffice
To illume
With their bright eyes
Fluctuant ecstatic gloom
'Twixt the fallen emerald sun,
And the unrisen azure one.

But the season of the night
Comes in all the suns' despite;
And, ah, gorgeous then their sorrows,
At departure into morrows
Of far, other lands forgot—
Until now remembered not,
For the lovelier flow'rs of this,
And each lake's pure lucency;
And recalled regretfully,
Regretfully, for leaving THIS.

In the star-possessèd night
The land knows another light—
All the small and evil rays
Of the sorcerous orbs ablaze
With ecstatical, intense
Hate and still malevolence—
Dwelling on the fields below
From the ascendancy of even,
Till the suns, re-entering heaven,
Glorify with triple glow
The dim flowers smitten low.

Ah, not cold, or kind, as ours,
The stars of those remotest hours!
Peace and pallor of the flow'rs
They have fevered, they have marred,
With the poison of their light,
With distilled bale and blight
Of a red, accursed regard:
All the toil of sunlight hours
They undo
With their wild eyes—
Eldritch and ecstatic eyes,
Stooping timeward from the skies,
Burning redly in the dew.