Morning poems
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The House Of Dust: Part 04: 03: Palimpsest: A Deceitful Portrait
© Conrad Aiken
Or 'one day dies eventless as another,
Leaving the seeker still unsatisfied,
And more convinced life yields no satisfaction'?
Or 'seek too hard, the sight at length grows callous,
And beauty shines in vain'?
The House Of Dust: Part 03: 02: The Screen Maiden
© Conrad Aiken
You readwhat is it, then that you are reading?
What music moves so silently in your mind?
Your bright hand turns the page.
I watch you from my window, unsuspected:
You move in an alien land, a silent age . . .
The House Of Dust: Part 02: 10: Sudden Death
© Conrad Aiken
'Number fourthe girl who died on the table
The girl with golden hair'
The purpling body lies on the polished marble.
We open the throat, and lay the thyroid bare . . .
The House Of Dust: Part 02: 09: Interlude
© Conrad Aiken
The days, the nights, flow one by one above us,
The hours go silently over our lifted faces,
We are like dreamers who walk beneath a sea.
Beneath high walls we flow in the sun together.
We sleep, we wake, we laugh, we pursue, we flee.
The House Of Dust: Part 02: 06: Adele And Davis
© Conrad Aiken
She turned her head on the pillow, and cried once more.
And drawing a shaken breath, and closing her eyes,
To shut out, if she could, this dingy room,
The wigs and costumes scattered around the floor,
Moods
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Oh that a Song would sing itself to me
Out of the heart of Nature, or the heart
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.
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.
Senlin: His Futile Preoccupations
© Conrad Aiken
Vine leaves tap my window,
Dew-drops sing to the garden stones,
The robin chips in the chinaberry tree
Repeating three clear tones.
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
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.
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.
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,
Morning Song Of Senlin
© Conrad Aiken
from Senlin: A Biography
It is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning
When the light drips through the shutters like the dew,
I arise, I face the sunrise,
The First Thrush
© Dame Mary Gilmore
Though leaves have fallen long since,
The wagtails flirt and flit,
Glad in the morning sun;
While, on the knotted quince,
The dewdrops, pearled on it,
Bead to a little run. . . .
Pejar Creek
© Dame Mary Gilmore
Runs like a slip of silver through the valley.
Where the Pejar rises
Springs the Wollondilly,
Twinned upon the mountains
Babbling brook and ghyllie;
The Two April Mornings
© William Wordsworth
We walked along, while bright and red
Uprose the morning sun;
And Matthew stopped, he looked, and said
`The will of God be done!'
