Paean

Clark Ashton Smith

You are the golden guerdon
Of all the iron days:
Hereafter song shall praise
Only your pagan breasts, and have for burden
Your wine-sweet lips, your blithe, delicious ways.

Hereafter with wild glory
Engarlanding your head,
Wreathing your name unsaid,
Song yet shall leave untold a fairer story
Than fabled loves and passions legended.

Song shall repeat hereafter
No sigh from love forlorn
Importunately torn:
For love has known how tender is your laughter
In hours between the moonfall and the morn.

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