All Poems
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The House Of Dust: Part 02: 03: Interlude
© Conrad Aiken
The warm sun dreams in the dust, the warm sun falls
On bright red roofs and walls;
The trees in the park exhale a ghost of rain;
We go from door to door in the streets again,
The House Of Dust: Part 02: 02: The Fulfilled Dream
© Conrad Aiken
More towers must yet be builtmore towers destroyed
Great rocks hoisted in air;
And he must seek his bread in high pale sunlight
With gulls about him, and clouds just over his eyes . . .
The House Of Dust: Part 02: 01: The round red sun heaves darkly out of the sea
© Conrad Aiken
The round red sun heaves darkly out of the sea.
The walls and towers are warmed and gleam.
Sounds go drowsily up from streets and wharves.
The city stirs like one that is half in dream.
Nocturne
© Cesare Pavese
The hill is like night against the clear sky.
Your head framed against it, barely moving,
and moving with the sky. You are like a cloud
seen between branches. In your eyes the laughter
and strangeness of a sky that is not yours.
The House Of Dust: Part 01: 08: The white fog creeps from the cold sea over the city
© Conrad Aiken
The white fog creeps from the cold sea over the city,
Over the pale grey tumbled towers,
And settles among the roofs, the pale grey walls.
Along damp sinuous streets it crawls,
Curls like a dream among the motionless trees
And seems to freeze.
The Indian Gypsy
© Sarojini Naidu
IN tattered robes that hoard a glittering trace
Of bygone colours, broidered to the knee,
Behold her, daughter of a wandering race,
Tameless, with the bold falcon's agile grace,
And the lithe tiger's sinuous majesty.
The House Of Dust: Part 01: 07: Midnight; bells toll, and along the cloud-high towers
© Conrad Aiken
'The bells have just struck twelve: I should be sleeping.
But I cannot delay any longer to write and tell you.
The woman is dead.
She diedyou know the way. Just as we planned.
Smiling, with open sunlit eyes.
Smiling upon the outstretched fatal hand . . .'
A Widow's Hymn
© George Wither
How near me came the hand of Death,
When at my side he struck my dear,
The House Of Dust: Part 01: 06: Over the darkened city, the city of towers
© Conrad Aiken
The fisherman draws his streaming net from the sea
And sails toward the far-off city, that seems
Like one vague tower.
The dark bow plunges to foam on blue-black waves,
And shrill rain seethes like a ghostly music about him
In a quiet shower.
Breitmann In Forty-Eight
© Charles Godfrey Leland
DERE woned once a studente,
All in der Stadt Paris,
Whom jeder der ihn kennte,
Der rowdy Breitmann hiess.
The House Of Dust: Part 01: 05: The snow floats down upon us, mingled with rain
© Conrad Aiken
The snow floats down upon us, we turn, we turn,
Through gorges filled with light we sound and flow . . .
One is struck down and hurt, we crowd about him,
We bear him away, gaze after his listless body;
But whether he lives or dies we do not know.
The Sonnets To Orpheus: X
© Rainer Maria Rilke
You who are close to my heart always,
I welcome you, ancient coffins of stone,
which the cheerful water of Roman days
still flows through, like a wandering song.
The House Of Dust: Part 01: 04: Up high black walls, up sombre terraces
© Conrad Aiken
Up high black walls, up sombre terraces,
Clinging like luminous birds to the sides of cliffs,
The yellow lights went climbing towards the sky.
From high black walls, gleaming vaguely with rain,
Each yellow light looked down like a golden eye.
The Mysterious Cat
© Vachel Lindsay
I saw a proud, mysterious cat,
I saw a proud, mysterious cat
Too proud to catch a mouse or rat
Mew, mew, mew.
The House Of Dust: Part 01: 03: One, where the pale sea foamed at the yellow sand
© Conrad Aiken
One, where the pale sea foamed at the yellow sand,
With wave upon slowly shattering wave,
Turned to the city of towers as evening fell;
And slowly walked by the darkening road toward it;
And saw how the towers darkened against the sky;
And across the distance heard the toll of a bell.
The House Of Dust: Part 01: 02: One, from his high bright window in a tower
© Conrad Aiken
One, from his high bright window, looking down,
Peers like a dreamer over the rain-bright town,
And thinks its towers are like a dream.
The western windows flame in the sun's last flare,
Pale roofs begin to gleam.
The Graybacks So Tenderly Clinging
© Anonymous
There were companions on the march, as every soldier found,
With ceaseless zeal in digging deep in every spot around,
And though each hero killed a lot, still thousands more abound,
The graybacks so tenderly clinging.
The House Of Dust: Part 01: 01: The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light
© Conrad Aiken
The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light.
The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:
And lights wink out through the windows, one by one.
A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night.
Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun.
To Lady Firebrace
© Samuel Johnson
At length must Suffolk beauties shine in vain,
So long renown'd in B-n's deathless strain?
Thy charms at least, fair Firebrace, might inspire
Some zealous bard to wake the sleeping lyre:
For such thy beauteous mind and lovely face,
Thou seem'st at once, bright nymph, a Muse and Grace.
The House Of Dust: Introduction
© Conrad Aiken
. . . Parts of this poem have been printed in "The North American
Review, Others, Poetry, Youth, Coterie, The Yale Review". . . . I am
indebted to Lafcadio Hearn for the episode called "The Screen Maiden"
in Part II.
