DIY History | Transcribe | Hevelin Fanzines | Fantasy Fan, v. 2, issue 3, whole no. 15, November 1934

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Fantasy Fan, v. 2, issue 3, whole no. 15, November 1934

Page 46

46     THE FANTASY FAN, November 1934

MEDUSA

by Clark Ashton Smith

(written at the age of 18)

As drear and barren as the glooms of Death,
It lies, a windless land of livid dawns,
Nude to a desolate firmament, with hills
That seem the fleshless earth's outjutting ribs,
And plains whose face is crossed and rivelled deep
With gullies twisting like a serpent's track.
The leprous touch of Death is on its stones,
Where, for his token visible, the Head
Is throned upon a heap of monstrous rocks,
Rough-mounded like some shattered pyramid
In a thwartly cloven hill-ravine, that seems
The unhealing scar of Tellurian wars.
Her lethal beauty crowned with twining snakes
That animate her hair, the Gorgon reigns:
Her eyes are clouds wherein Death's lightnings lurk,
Yet, even as men that seek the glance of Life,
The gazers come, where, coiled and serpent-swift,
Those levins wait. As round an altar-base
Her victims lie, distorted, blackened forms
Of posture horror smitten into stone--
Time caught in meshes of eternity--
Drawn back from dust and ruin of the years,
And given to all the future of the world.
The land is claimed of Death: the daylight comes
Half-strangled in the changing webs of cloud
That unseen spiders of bewildered winds
Weave and unweave across the lurid sun
In upper air. Below, no zephyr comes
To break with life the circling spell of doom.
Long vapour-serpents twist about the moon,
And in the windy murkness of the sky,

Saving...

46 THE FANTASY FAN, November 1934 MEDUSA by Clark Ashton Smith (written at the age of 18) As drear and barren as the glooms of Death, It lies, a windless land of livid dawns, Nude to a desolate firmament, with hills That seem the fleshless earth's outjutting ribs, And plains whose face is crossed and rivelled deep With gullies twisting like a serpent's track. The leprous touch of Death is on its stones, Where, for his token visible, the Head Is throned upon a heap of monstrous rocks, Rough-mounded like some shattered pyramid In a thwartly cloven hill-ravine, that seems The unhealing scar of Tellurian wars. Her lethal beauty crowned with twining snakes That animate her hair, the Gorgon reigns: Her eyes are clouds wherein Death's lightnings lurk, Yet, even as men that seek the glance of Life, The gazers come, where, coiled and serpent-swift, Those levins wait. As round an altar-base Her victims lie, distorted, blackened forms Of posture horror smitten into stone-- Time caught in meshes of eternity-- Drawn back from dust and ruin of the years, And given to all the future of the world. The land is claimed of Death: the daylight comes Half-strangled in the changing webs of cloud That unseen spiders of bewildered winds Weave and unweave across the lurid sun In upper air. Below, no zephyr comes To break with life the circling spell of doom. Long vapour-serpents twist about the moon, And in the windy murkness of the sky,