The Twilight of the Gods

Clark Ashton Smith

All the satyrs have been dehorned,
And wappened are Mohammed's houris;
Pluto lies supremely corned
Amid the snakeless Furies.

Every mermaiden I have seen
Was sunning her hams in a bathing-suit,
Melpomene is on the screen,
Pan is tootling a night-club flute.

The jinnees all are in the jug
(I mean the kind with a seal and Stopper)
The famous flying Arabian rug
Has somewhere come a cropper.

Great Hercules by mail doth sell
Lessons for building muscles rightly . . .
But the witch of Endor is doing well
With seances given nightly.

The Golden Fleece, a trifle crummy,
Hangs in a shop with three gold spheres;
Apollo is a dry-goods dummy,
Atropos wields a sempstress' shears.

Adonis runs a bill at the tailor's,
Diana hunts the genus homo,
The Cyprian goddess is chiseling sailors
In a dive with a Bouguereau chromo.

Old Pegasus, that spavined nag,
Is out to grass with the cows and hinnies,
While Bacchus has gone on another jag
At Angelo's or Dinny's.

Printed from: www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/612
Printed on: April 20, 2024