Imagination Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCDBDD EAEAAFAFF GHGHHIHII CJCJJHJHH KLKLLMLMM LNLNNONOO PLPLLBLBC QOOOQOBC LLLLLRLRR STSTULTLLVLWL LLLLL LLLLLLLLLImagination to thine occult sight | A |
All things are crystal earth and sea and sky | B |
The seen and the unseen but limpid light | A |
Unvisioned stars shall not thy wings defy | B |
For thee the Future hath no secrecy | C |
Not with the senses dost thou share the chains | D |
Of Time and Space's prison thou dost fly | B |
At will the narrow bourne of their domains | D |
For realms where never bruit of Time and Space attains | D |
- | |
All earth is empire of thy tireless quest | E |
Thy wings achieve the cloud invested height | A |
Or down the distant sunset flooded West | E |
Thou vanishest in long unerring flight | A |
That far outspeeds the swarthy plumes of Night | A |
Thou findest rest a space on sunset sands | F |
But soon a star with Westward sinking light | A |
Doth speak of more remote untrodden strands | F |
And forth thou farest toward those undiscovered lands | F |
- | |
No realm nor place is secret from thy gaze | G |
The kingdoms of the bird and fish are thine | H |
Thy pinions try the eagle's lucid ways | G |
Then sink to search the foaming vasts of brine | H |
Thou soar'st to meet the morning's lucent shine | H |
Where Night and Day beneath thy feet are spread | I |
In long insuperable battle line | H |
Then in a breath thou front'st the sunset's red | I |
Or seekest midnight's realm of mystery and dread | I |
- | |
The ocean yields its secrets unto thee | C |
Far down beneath the agitated wave | J |
Where winds stir not the anger of the sea | C |
Thou plungest to some Nereid's emerald cave | J |
Whose floors the varied shells of ocean pave | J |
Here wealth of pearls and strange sea flowers is thine | H |
But soon aweary grown thy soul doth crave | J |
The noontide air and where the breakers shine | H |
Thou soar'st to watch their furious cliff assailing line | H |
- | |
And then thou questest dusks obscure and strange | K |
Perpetual twilights in some jungle's heart | L |
Where darkness comes a scarcely noted change | K |
Here trees inweave as if with conscious art | L |
O'er pools that of the gloom appear a part | L |
Nor know the silver kiss of star or moon | M |
And birds strange plumaged unauthentic dart | L |
Through shadows that affirm and then impugn | M |
And leaves and flowers unfamiliar to the noon | M |
- | |
Now o'er a Winter land thou hoverest | L |
Its sunlit snow to mark on transient wing | N |
To trees in glittering icy armour dressed | L |
Mild Southern winds bear bruit of coming Spring | N |
And seek to rouse with amorous whispering | N |
The white robed grass the clouds austere and grey | O |
That late were earth's dark vaulted covering | N |
In ranks disordered dim now flee away | O |
And skies of azure threaten Winter's waning sway | O |
- | |
Thy pinions find a desert drear forlorn | P |
Where purple Night fills all the fruitless land | L |
Deepest a little ere the East of morn | P |
Grows ominous Her all deleting hand | L |
Seems promise that her reign awhile shall stand | L |
When Day with baleful Cyclopean eye | B |
Upleaps in flame and of his sway the sand | L |
Grows ostent swift In gardens of the sky | B |
At his fell breath the stars are withered utterly | C |
- | |
Of other worlds thy wings ambitious are | Q |
O'er airless gulfs that yawn past reach of Day | O |
Unfathomed voids of space 'twixt star and star Unhesitatingly thou dost essay | O |
Some world exclusive from the sun's wide sway | O |
Strange forms of life thine eyes thereon descry | Q |
New unfamiliar that yet tread a way | O |
Which dim and difficult like ours doth lie | B |
Through dark and pain toward goals that gleam in unity | C |
- | |
The outer barriers of our system past | L |
Thou stayst thy flight to mark in awe and dread | L |
Some world that ruins down the darkling vast | L |
Or suns and asteroids that hurtling red | L |
To cataclysmic vortices are fed | L |
And equallized in ruin Then in gloom | R |
Of planets derelict long ages dead | L |
That whirl where never suns nor stars illume | R |
Thou 'light'st a space to muse upon their frozen doom | R |
- | |
Thy magic spells recall the Past to life | S |
Before thine eyes the pageant of the years | T |
Doth move with its reanimated strife | S |
Its record of forgotten hopes and fears | T |
Dead loves and hates and buried joys and tears | U |
Long fallen to thy voice obedient | L |
Arise and live again unto thine ears | T |
Voices for ages still are eloquent | L |
And thou beholdest forms long years in darkness pent | L |
Once more the might of Rome and Babylon | V |
Lies as a shadow over East and West | L |
Again Greece sheds a glory as of dawn | W |
Whose lambent splendour all the years attest | L |
- | |
Once more in empire's tidal quick unrest | L |
Egypt and Tyre and Persia rise in state | L |
And Alexander's world lust is addressed | L |
Unto their humbling thrones and nations great | L |
Again are raised or levelled as the Fates dictate | L |
- | |
'Mong peoples and through realms restored to light | L |
At will thou wanderest Thou dost behold | L |
Swart Egypt's gods enthroned in templed might | L |
Along the Nile and 'fore thine eyes unfold | L |
Their vanished pomps with glare of gems and gold | L |
Thou look'st on Rome when at its utmost height | L |
Her grandeur dazzled earth the wars of old | L |
Upflame and rage anew within thy sight | L |
With sanguine pageant of advance retreat and fight | L |
Clark Ashton Smith
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about Imagination poem by Clark Ashton Smith
Best Poems of Clark Ashton Smith