Great poems

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The House Of Dust: Part 02: 05: Retrospect

© Conrad Aiken

Round white clouds roll slowly above the housetops,
Over the clear red roofs they flow and pass.
A flock of pigeons rises with blue wings flashing,
Rises with whistle of wings, hovers an instant,
And settles slowly again on the tarnished grass.

The House Of Dust: Part 02: 04: Nightmare

© Conrad Aiken

I sit before the gold-embroidered curtain
And think her face is like a wrinkled desert.
The crystal burns in lamplight beneath my eyes.
A dragon slowly coils on the scaly curtain.
Upon a scarlet cloth a white skull lies.

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 . . .

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: 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.

The House Of Dust: Complete (Long)

© 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.

The Deserted Palace

© Robert Laurence Binyon

``My feet are dead, the cold rain beats my face!''
``Courage, sweet love, this tempest is our friend!''
``Yet oh, shall we not rest a little space?
This city sleeps; some corner may defend

Senlin: His Dark Origins

© Conrad Aiken

He lights his pipe with a pointed flame.
'Yet, there were many autumns before I came,
And many springs. And more will come, long after
There is no horn for me, or song, or laughter.

The Last Blossom

© Oliver Wendell Holmes

THOUGH young no more, we still would dream
Of beauty's dear deluding wiles;
The leagues of life to graybeards seem
Shorter than boyhood's lingering miles.

Sonnet. "I cannot sleep for thinking of thy face"

© Frances Anne Kemble

I cannot sleep for thinking of thy face,

Which thrusts itself between the dark and me,

Improvisations: Light And Snow

© Conrad Aiken

How many times have I sat here,
How many times will I sit here again,
Thinking these same things over and over in solitude
As a child says over and over
The first word he has learned to say.

Life's Lesson Book

© Wilcox Ella Wheeler

Life is a ponderous lesson-book, and Fate
The teacher. When I came to love's fair leaf
My teacher turned the page and bade me wait.
"Learn first," she said, "love's grief";
And o'er and o'er through many a long tomorrow
She kept me conning that sad page of sorrow.

A Letter From Li Po

© Conrad Aiken

Fanfare of northwest wind, a bluejay wind
announces autumn, and the equinox
rolls back blue bays to a far afternoon.
Somewhere beyond the Gorge Li Po is gone,