Tolometh

by Clark Ashton Smith


	In billow-lost Posedonis
	I was the black god of the abyss:
	My three horns were of similor
	Above my double diadem;
	My one eye was a moon-bright gem
	Found in a monstrous meteor.

	Incredible far peoples came,
	Called by the thunders of my fame,
	And passed before my terraced throne
	Where titan pards and lions stood,
	As pours a never-lapsing flood
	Before the winds of winter blown.

	Below my glooming architraves,
	One brown eternal file of slaves
	Came in from mines of chalcedon,
	And camels from the long plateaus
	Laid down their sard and peridoz,
	Their incense and their cinnamon.

	The star-born evil that I brought
	Through all the ancient land was wrought:
	All women took my yoke of shame;
	I reared, through sumless centuries,
	The thrones of hell-black wizardries,
	The hecatombs of blood and flame.

	But now, within my sunken walls,
	The slow blind ocean-serpent crawls,
	And sea-worms are my ministers,
	And wandering fishes pass me now
	Or press before mine eyeless brow
	As once the thronging worshippers...

	And yet, in ways outpassing thought,
	Men worship me that know me not.
	They work my will. I shall arise
	In that last dawn of atom-fire,
	To stand upon the planet's pyre
	And cast my shadow on the skies.