"The Nevermore-To-Be" by Clark Ashton Smith

11 months ago
5

Lady, be the chatelaine
Of my vagrant dreams and vain:
Knowing naught is true and fair
Save the love that is despair,
In thy heart's withholden visne
Share with me the might-have-been,
Weave with me the sorcery
Of the nevermore-to-be.

Lady, let us pluck delight
Only from a forfeit night,
From the bedded myrtles strewn
'Neath a never-risen moon.
From the coil of years made free
In the climes of reverie,
Flee we to the phantom Troy
Of a time-forbidden joy.

Lady, be the chatelaine
Of my vagrant dreams and vain:
Be thou true and be thou kind
To the love we shall not find—
Sweet as aught the sirens sang:
Time shall bring no dearer pang
Nor a mightier sorcery
Than the nevermore-to-be.

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chatelaine: a woman in charge of a large house

visne: a neighboring or surrounding district; vicinity. As a legal term, it is a neighbourhood, or a jury selected from the neighbourhood, in which a disputed action or crime occurred. This is such an obscure word, I struggled mightily to find pronunciation help with it. In the end, I went with what Merriam-Webster indicated, as it fit as a rhyme, more or less, with 'been'.

To follow along: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/366/the-nevermore-to-be

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