(For Samuel Loveman 17-5-1915)

O'er dreamland gardens lulled and white
In music leaned the langorous moon
The burden of the murmured night.

Where amaranths and lillies wore,
In a lofty pallor fully blown,
An ivory silence evermore,

Bemused, I saw the night's white song,
The flower's moon-measured lullaby,
Its visible pale rune prolong

Then, to my spelled reluctant ear,
A whisper louder than the light,
pierced as from alien presence near

Till half I deemed to shortly see
A silver seraph of the moon,
Or star-shape harping mystery.

But wingless yet the midnight seemed,
The garden footless to my gaze,
Save for a wind that fleetly gleamed

Upon the pensive-paced hours,
And moonlight fluttering like a moth
Amid the swayed, enormous flowers.

4. Yellowed Texts: Gems from Fisher Library.
Clark Ashton Smith: Grotesques and Fantastiques.