Ebony and Crystal/The City in the Desert

by Clark Ashton Smith

THE CITY IN THE DESERT

In a lost land, that only dreams have known,Where flaming suns walk naked and alone;Among horizons bright as molten brass,And glowing heavens like furnaces of glass,It rears, with dome and tower manifold,Rich as a dawn of amarant and gold,Or gorgeous as the Phoenix, born of fire,And soaring from an opalescent pyre,Sheer to the zenith. Like some anademeOf Titan jewels turned to flame and dream,The city crowns the far horizon-light,Over the flowered meads of damassin.***A desert isle of madreperl! whereinThe thurifer and opal-fruited palm,And heaven-thronging minarets becalmThe seas of azure wind. ****

NOTE: These lines were remembered out of a dream, and are given verbatim.