Clark Ashton Smith,
Ebony and Crystal — The Garden and the Tomb
(1922)
“ Alas! in the heart of the garden is a tomb—a tomb so trellised and embowered with vine and blosssom, that the sunlight reveals the ghastly gleam of its marble to no careless or incurious scrutiny. But in the night, when all the flowers are still, and their perfumes are faint as the breathing of children in slumber—then, and then only, the serpents bred of corruption crawl from the tomb, and trail the fetor and phosphorescence of their abiding-place from end to end of the garden. ”
