The Absence of the Muse

by Clark Ashton Smith

　　

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The Absence of the Muse was published in Lyric West in 1921.

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O Muse, where loiterest thou? In any land Of Saturn, lit with moons and nenuphars? Or in what high metropolis of Mars— Hearing the gongs of dire, occult command, And bugles blown from strand to unknown strand Of continents embattled in old wars That primal kings began? Or on the bars Of ebbing seas in Venus, from the sand Of shattered nacre with a thousand hues, Dost pluck the blossoms of the purple wrack And roses of blue coral for thy hair? Or, flown beyond the roaring Zodiac, Translatest thou the tale of earthly news And earthly songs to singers of Altair?

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