Shapes in the Sunset

by Clark Ashton Smith


	Daylong was my slumber. At the sunset,
	Wakening, I beheld the clouds, a hundred
	Shapes of antic gods and beasts of wonder
	Gathered on the horizon.

	Vulcan, with his forge behind him, towered,
	Greaved with aureate fire, against the boundless
	Concave west; and whirling Scylla spouted
	Purple spray on Triton.

	There, with gaping mouth, the Mantichora
	Showed his teeth and uttered silent roarings;
	Light and silky as thistle-down, the Astomians
	Came from lands of marvel,

	Wafted on their ether; and the headless
	People followed after them, the Blemmyes,
	Searing on humped shoulders through the heavens
	Their enormous fardels.

	There, across dismembered Titans crawling,
	Python rolled his volumes; there the Gorgon,
	Eyed with blinding gold, through rack amorphous
	Trailed her sinuous ringlets.

	There, with skyward soles, with head inverted,
	Hung the Sciapod, torn from his earthy
	Plot remote; and swam the cod-tailed Mermaid,
	From the surges rivers.

	While the sunset, deepening and rubious,
	Limned the bestiary shapes in lurid
	Salamandrine hues, and robed with murex
	Gods from myths forgotten,

	I, the watcher, cried: "O clouds of wonder,
	Fables, carry me where an age-long sunset
	Arches your lost Thule, by no sullen
	Earth-born shadows blotted!"