Wine of Summer

Clark Ashton Smith

From the deep azure chalice of the sky,
Inverted on the vale
And hot horizons pale,
The philtered wine of summer drains away. . . .
It was but yesterday
We drank that draft together, you and I.

Here in the grove the fallen needles bear,
Broken and disarrayed,
The print our presence made. . . .
O! haunted hollow left by your sweet form!
How the swift tears are warm
In eyes that seek and cannot find you there.

It seems the selfsame wind is in the pine
That sighed or sank above
Our ecstasy and love. . . .
But now no dryad face, no dryad voice
Shall make my heart rejoice,
No dear Bacchante wear the wilding vine.

O love! no other lips than ours have known
How sweet the wine, how sweet
With honey and soft heat
Mingling within that blissful magistral . . .
And yet how sadly fall
The slow, slow drops for him that drinks alone.

Printed from: www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/651
Printed on: March 28, 2024