Time poems
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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,
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: 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 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: 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.
Barn Owl
© Gwen Harwood
Daybreak: the household slept.
I rose, blessed by the sun.
A horny fiend, I crept
out with my father's gun.
Let him dream of a child
obedient, angel-mind-
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 Carver
© Conrad Aiken
See, as the carver carves a rose,
A wing, a toad, a serpent's eye,
In cruel granite, to disclose
The soft things that in hardness lie,
The Witness Spirit
© Sri Aurobindo
I dwell in the spirit's calm nothing can move
And watch the actions of Thy vast world-force,
Its mighty wings that through infinity move
And the Time-gallopings of the deathless Horse.
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
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.
A Ballad Of Santa Claus
© Henry Van Dyke
For the St. Nicholas Society of New York
Among the earliest saints of old, before the first Hegira,
Nocturne Of Remembered Spring
© Conrad Aiken
I. Moonlight silvers the tops of trees,
Moonlight whitens the lilac shadowed wall
And through the evening fall,
Clearly, as if through enchanted seas,
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.
Tales Of A Wayside Inn : Part 3. Interlude II.
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Well pleased all listened to the tale,
That drew, the Student said, its pith
Evening Song Of Senlin
© Conrad Aiken
from Senlin: A Biography
It is moonlight. Alone in the silence
I ascend my stairs once more,
While waves, remote in a pale blue starlight,
Discordants
© Conrad Aiken
Music I heard with you was more than music,
And bread I broke with you was more than bread;
Now that I am without you, all is desolate;
All that was once so beautiful is dead.
