Smith, Clark Ashton

The Thralls Of Circe Climb Parnassus

1. Between the mountain meadow and the pines
2. In one still wave the flowered azaleas clomb—
3. A billow laced and crested with pale foam
4. Unscattered by the balsam-bearing winds.
5.  
6. High-rearing on their miry haunches, where
7. Some grassy-bottomed tarn had sunk and died,
8. A black hog and his mate stood side by side,
9. Sniffing those elfin blossoms cool and fair.
10.  
11. Straying in new-found freedom, hungry still,
12. They had gone forth beneath the immaculate sky
13. Through fir-set fells beyond their broken sty
14.  
15. And lofty valleys, wild and aspen-grown…
16. As those who haply seek for husks and swill
17. Amid the flowers upon Parnassus blown.