The Poetry Corner

Nirvana

By Clark Ashton Smith

Poised as a god whose lone, detachd post, An eyrie, pends between the boundary-marks Of finite years, and those unvaried darks That veil Eternity, I saw the host Of worlds and suns, swept from the furthermost Of night - confusion as of dust with sparks - Whirl tow'rd the opposing brink; as one who harks Some warning trumpet, Time, a withered ghost, Fled with them; disunited orbs that late Were atoms of the universal frame, They passed to some eternal fragment-heap. And, lo, the gods, from space discorporate, Who were its life and vital spirit, came, Drawn outward by the vampire-lips of Sleep!