Spells and Philtres is a collection of poems by Clark Ashton Smith

Clark Ashton Smith

Clark Ashton Smith was a self-educated American poet, sculptor, painter and author of fantasy, horror and science fiction short stories. He achieved early local recognition, largely through the enthusiasm of George Sterling, for traditional verse in the vein of Swinburne...

. It was released in 1958

1958 in literature

The year 1958 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*August 18 - Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel Lolita is published in United States.*First volume of The Civil War by Shelby Foote is published....

 and was the author's fifth book and second collection or poetry to be published by Arkham House

Arkham House

Arkham House is a publishing house specializing in weird fiction founded in Sauk City, Wisconsin in 1939 by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei to preserve in hardcover the best fiction of H.P. Lovecraft. The company's name is derived from Lovecraft's fictional New England city, Arkham. Arkham House...

. It was released in an edition of 519 copies. The book was a second stop-gap volume following The Dark Chateau

The Dark Chateau

The Dark Chateau is a collection of poems by Clark Ashton Smith. It was released in 1951 and was the author's fourth book to be published by Arkham House. It was released in an edition of 563 copies...

. It represented Smith's poetry while the more extensive Selected Poems

Selected Poems (C. A. Smith)

Selected Poems is a collection of poems by Clark Ashton Smith. It was released in 1971 by Arkham House in an edition of 2,118 copies. The collection also includes several translations of French and Spanish poems...

was being prepared which did not ultimately appear until 1971

1971 in literature

The year 1971 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*The Destiny Waltz by Gerda Charles wins the UK's first Whitbread Novel of the Year Award.-New books:*Hiroshi Aramata - Teito Monogatari...

. The collection also includes several translations of French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 and Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

 poems. Clérigo Herrero, however, is not a real person and the poem is actually a composition of Smith's.

Contents

Spells and Philtres contains the following poems:

1. "Dedication"
2. "Didus Ineptus"
3. "Thebaid"
4. "Secret Love"
5. "The Pagan"
6. "Tired Gardener"
7. "Nada"
8. "High Surf"
9. "The Centaur"
10. "Said the Dreamer"
11. "The Nameless Wraith"
12. "The Blindness of Orion"
13. "Jungle Twilight"
14. "The Phoenix"
15. "The Prophet Speaks"
16. "Farewell to Eros"
17. "Alternative"
18. "Only to One Returned"
19. "Anteros"
20. "No Stranger Dream"
21. "Do you Forget, Enchantress?"
22. "Necromancy"
23. "Dialogue"
24. "October"
25. "Dominion"
26. "Tolometh"
27. "Disillusionment"
28. "Almost Anything"
29. "Parnassus a la Mode"
30. "Fence and Wall"
31. "Growth of Lichen"
32. "Cats in Winter Sunlight"
33. "Abandoned Plum-Orchard"
34. "Harvest Evening"
35. "Willow-Cutting in Autumn"
36. "Late Pear-Pruner"
37. "Geese in the Spring Night"
38. "The Sparrow's Nest"
39. "The Last Apricot"
40. "Unicorn"
41. "Untold Arabian Fable"
42. "A Hunter Meets the Mantichoras"
43. "The Sciapod"
44. "The Monacle"
45. "Feast of St. Anthony"
46. "Paphnutios"
47. "Philter"
48. "Perseus and Medusa"
49. "Essence"
50. "Passing of an Elder God"
51. "Nightmare of the Lilliputian"
52. "Mithridates"
53. "Quiddity"
54. "'That Motley Drama'" (from Clérigo Herrero)
55. "Rimas XXXIII" (from Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer
    Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer
    Gustavo Adolfo Domínguez Bastida, better known as Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, was a Spanish post-romanticist writer of poetry and short stories, now considered one of the most important figures in Spanish literature. He adopted the alias of Bécquer as his brother Valeriano Bécquer, a painter, had...
    
    )
56. "Ecclesiastes" (from Charles-Marie-René Leconte de Lisle
    Charles-Marie-René Leconte de Lisle
    Charles Marie René Leconte de Lisle was a French poet of the Parnassian movement.-Life:Leconte de Lisle was born on the island of Réunion. His father, an army surgeon, who brought him up with great severity, sent him to travel in the East Indies with a view to preparing him for a commercial life...
    
    )
57. "Anterior Life" (from Charles Baudelaire
    Charles Baudelaire
    Charles Baudelaire was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century...
    
    )
58. "Song of Autumn" (from Charles Baudelaire
    Charles Baudelaire
    Charles Baudelaire was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century...
    
    )
59. "Lethe" (from Charles Baudelaire
    Charles Baudelaire
    Charles Baudelaire was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century...
    
    )
60. "The Metamorphoses of the Vampire" (from Charles Baudelaire
    Charles Baudelaire
    Charles Baudelaire was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century...
    
    )
61. "Epigrams and Apothegms"