Clark Ashton Smith

“ In menace huge, the plain its monstrous bulk,
The peaks its hydra heads, the whole world crouched
Against their march with the diminished stars.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published in 1912, before the cutoff of January 1, 1928. ”

“ Saturn could not stem
The loosened torrents of long-pent defeat;
He, with his hosts, was but as drift thereon,
Borne wildly down the whelmed and reeling world.
Hurling like slanted rain, the violet levin
Fell over that flight of Titans, and behind,
In striding menace, all-victorious Jove
Loomed like some craggy cloud with thunders crowned
And footed with the winds. In that defeat,
With Jove's pursuit deepened and manifold,
Few found escape unscathed, and some went down
Like senile suns that grapple with the dark,
And reel in flame tremendous, and are still. ”

“ Of Saturn's voice had fled remote, and seemed
Dead thunders caught and flung from star to star:
"Wouldst hurl thy kingdom down the nightward gulf
Like to a stone a curious child might cast
To test the fall of some dark precipice?
Patience and caution should we take as mail,
Not rashness for a weapon—too keen sword
That cuts the strainèd knot of destiny,
Never to be tied again. Were it not best
To watch the slow procedure of the days,
That we may grasp a time more opportune
When desperation is not all our strength
Nor the foe newly filled with victory ? ”