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Acolyte, v. 3, issue 1, whole no. 9, Winter 1945
Page 3
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PROSE PASTELS CLARK ASHTON SMITH 9. NARCISSUS **** Splentic pale Narcissus, in the green dead depth of some rotting pool thou seest thine image drown and re-emerge amid the shifting iridescent films of corruption, the beautiful bright scum that damascenes with fantastic arabesques the feted waters. Or in the brazen mirrors, mottled with verdigris, of queens that were fair and fatal, avid and insatiate of love or pain in lands the desert has now obliterated, perchance thou viewest the implacable perverse nympholepsy of thy mien. Or in the rustling shield of some ancestral warrior, peering with a casual curiosity, thou findest thine eyes alone reflected in pools of clear steel amid the tarnish, and in them a spark that has fallen from the perished flambeaux, a gleam from the brave and rutilant camp-fires whose ashes have fed the fertility of alien fields, sown and harvested a thousand times since the red autumn of the last, legendary battle. ----ooo0ooo---- 10. THE PERIL THAT LURKS AMONG RUINS **** "Go not too often among ruins," said the Demon in one of his rare moods of admonitory confidence. "For there is a strangeness in the shadows which these memorials of the vastness of the Past, broken though they be, have thrown for so many centuries upon the selfsame spot as in the dawn of their erection. Such shadows have gathered strength from their ancient and unbroken brooding; and they are not as the shadows of natural objects, for human time has accumulated within them like unswept dust, and memories of the dead cluster there like bats in a cavern. They have all the power and all the sopor of despair; they are deep as death and hollow as limbo. The earth has grown abysmal beneath them, and the air is full of unseen precipitate gulfs. "He is not wise who walks frequently and habitually amid these shadows. For, heedless of the peril, one may slip on some invisible precipice of the Past and go falling forevermore, a phantom among phantoms, sere and purposeless as a blown autumnal leaf, through the windy eternal night of bygone things. Yea, lost from time, he shall whirl impalpably with the gusty sand through shattered arches and between domeless columns; apart from the cycles of being, he shall dwell henceforward as a shadow with shadows." CHALLENGE To split a skull and laugh in furied glee at the red soul revealed, To strike and fend where death doth sing in every tongue of steel, Might make my life a precious article, That now I barter as of little worth, Trading rich days for doubtful coins Which may or may not buy me one tomorrow In the exchequer of the careless fates. Fool's gold, farewell! Satan, on guard! No more you'll hoodwink me with dreams of future bliss. Find other men to sell tomorrows to. Those coins I sweat for---yours---I throw away! You planned no payment, and I ask no pay. ----Fritz Leiber, Jr. -- 3 --
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PROSE PASTELS CLARK ASHTON SMITH 9. NARCISSUS **** Splentic pale Narcissus, in the green dead depth of some rotting pool thou seest thine image drown and re-emerge amid the shifting iridescent films of corruption, the beautiful bright scum that damascenes with fantastic arabesques the feted waters. Or in the brazen mirrors, mottled with verdigris, of queens that were fair and fatal, avid and insatiate of love or pain in lands the desert has now obliterated, perchance thou viewest the implacable perverse nympholepsy of thy mien. Or in the rustling shield of some ancestral warrior, peering with a casual curiosity, thou findest thine eyes alone reflected in pools of clear steel amid the tarnish, and in them a spark that has fallen from the perished flambeaux, a gleam from the brave and rutilant camp-fires whose ashes have fed the fertility of alien fields, sown and harvested a thousand times since the red autumn of the last, legendary battle. ----ooo0ooo---- 10. THE PERIL THAT LURKS AMONG RUINS **** "Go not too often among ruins," said the Demon in one of his rare moods of admonitory confidence. "For there is a strangeness in the shadows which these memorials of the vastness of the Past, broken though they be, have thrown for so many centuries upon the selfsame spot as in the dawn of their erection. Such shadows have gathered strength from their ancient and unbroken brooding; and they are not as the shadows of natural objects, for human time has accumulated within them like unswept dust, and memories of the dead cluster there like bats in a cavern. They have all the power and all the sopor of despair; they are deep as death and hollow as limbo. The earth has grown abysmal beneath them, and the air is full of unseen precipitate gulfs. "He is not wise who walks frequently and habitually amid these shadows. For, heedless of the peril, one may slip on some invisible precipice of the Past and go falling forevermore, a phantom among phantoms, sere and purposeless as a blown autumnal leaf, through the windy eternal night of bygone things. Yea, lost from time, he shall whirl impalpably with the gusty sand through shattered arches and between domeless columns; apart from the cycles of being, he shall dwell henceforward as a shadow with shadows." CHALLENGE To split a skull and laugh in furied glee at the red soul revealed, To strike and fend where death doth sing in every tongue of steel, Might make my life a precious article, That now I barter as of little worth, Trading rich days for doubtful coins Which may or may not buy me one tomorrow In the exchequer of the careless fates. Fool's gold, farewell! Satan, on guard! No more you'll hoodwink me with dreams of future bliss. Find other men to sell tomorrows to. Those coins I sweat for---yours---I throw away! You planned no payment, and I ask no pay. ----Fritz Leiber, Jr. -- 3 --
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