Ebony and Crystal/Transcendence

by Clark Ashton Smith

TRANSCENDENCE

To look on love with disenamoured eyes;To see with gaze relentless, rendered clearOf hope or hatred, of desire and fear,The insuperable nullity that liesBehind the veils of various disguiseWhich life or death may haply weave; to hearForevermore in flute and harp the mereAnd all-resolving silence; recognizeThe gules of autumn in the greening leaf,And in the poppy-pod the poppy-flow'r—This is to be the lord of love and grief,O'er Time's illusion and thyself supreme,As, half-aroused in some nocturnal hour,The dreamer knows and dominates his dream.