From planet unto planet whirled
By:
February 29, 2012
I delved in each forgotten mind,
The units that had builded me,
Whose deepnesses before were blind
And formless as infinity —
Knowing again each former world —
From planet unto planet whirled
Through gulfs that mightily divide
Like to an intervital sleep.
One world I found, where souls abide
Like winds that rest upon a rose;
Thereto they creep
To loose all burden of old woes.
And one I knew, where warp of pain
Is woven in the soul’s attire;
And one, where with new loveliness
Is strengthened Beauty’s olden chain —
Soft as a sound, and keen as fire —
In light no darkness may depress.
Section IV of Clark Ashton Smith’s poem, “The Star-Treader,” from his 1912 collection, The Star-Treader and Other Poems.
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