An old, lengthy essay about Ray Bradbury's work.
Requiescat In Pace
by Clark Ashton Smith
M.L.M.
White iris on thy bier,
With the white rose, we strew,
And lotus pale or blue
As moonlight on the orient mountain-snows.
Slumber, as they that sleep
In the slow sands unknown,
Or under seas that zone
With lulling foam the sealed, extremer lands
Slumber, with songless birds
That sang, and sang to death,
Giving their gladder breath
To lonely winds in one melodious pang.
Sleep, with the golden queens
Of planets long forgot,
Whose fire-soft lips are not
Recalled by any sorcery of song.
Sleep, with the towers that were,
And any leaf that fell
On field or flowerless dell
In autumns lost of memory and grief
Pass, with the music town
From ivory lyre, and lute
Of mellow string left mute
In cities desolate ere the dream of Tyre.
Pass, with the clouds that sank
In sunset turned to grey
On some Edenic day
For which the exiled years have ever yearned.
White iris on thy bier,
With the white rose, we strew,
And lotus pale or blue
As moonlight on the orient mountain-snows.
