The Suns And the Void

The Suns And the Void
Clark Ashton Smith

Upon the stark, blue blankness of the sky,
The assailing armies of the stars have swept,
And all the night is splendid with their spears.
The azure emptiness hath grown a page,
Inscribed with countless characters of flame -
Gigantic hieroglyphs inscrutable,
Emblazonry eternal of the dark,
And ciphers bright whose key is yet unfound,
That burn as riddles to unnumbered eyes
On worlds uncountable.

The earth rolls on
Within its shadow - darkness that lays bare
The sister worlds, and legions of the suns
That flame remote, as day to unseen spheres,
And gleaming atoms on the night to us.
Enormous revelation of the dark!
The finite looks upon Infinity,
The endless star-processions that unfold
On midnight roads of the unceasing void.
O suns, thy light doth blind and stun the soul!
The imponderable abyss is as a weight

To crush the spirit utterly! I feel,
More strong than thunder on the astounded ear,
The vast, stupendous silence of the gulf.
Its darkness wraps me round, and I am lost,
All sense of self o'erwhelmed, and my soul steeped
In night, till it becomes a darkness, too.
What suns beyond the suns, what further voids
The night doth hide! What skies unseen are bright
To dwellers in Polaris' worlds! What depths
Of black, abysmal silence fall unsunned
Past Fomalhaut!