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Inferno

Clark Ashton Smith

Grey hells, or hells aglow with hot and scarlet flowers;
White hells of light and clamor; hells the abomination
Of breathless, deep, sepulchral desolation
Oppresses ever-I have known them all, through hours
Tedious as dead eternity; where timeless powers,
Leagued in malign, omnipotent persuasion-
Wearing the guise of love, despair and aspiration,
For ever drove through ashen fields and burning bowers

My soul that found no sanctuary. . . . For Lucifer,
And all the weary, proud, imperious, baffled ones
Made in his image, hell is anywhere: the ice
Of hyperboreal deserts, or the blowing spice
In winds from off Sumatra, for each wanderer
Preserves the jealous flame of sad, infernal suns.

(C) Clark Ashton Smith
04/30/2019


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