War poems
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The House Of Dust: Part 04: 05: The Bitter Love-Song
© Conrad Aiken
Sharp shafts of music dazzled my eyes and pierced me.
I ran and turned and spun and danced in the sunlight,
Shrank, sometimes, from the freezing silence of beauty,
Or crept once more to the warm white cave of sleep.
The House Of Dust: Part 04: 04: Counterpoint: Two Rooms
© Conrad Aiken
He, in the room above, grown old and tired,
She, in the room belowhis floor her ceiling
Pursue their separate dreams. He turns his light,
And throws himself on the bed, face down, in laughter. . . .
She, by the window, smiles at a starlight night,
The Banks Of Wye - Book I
© Robert Bloomfield
No butler's proxies snore supine,
Where the old monarch kept his wine;
No Welch ox roasting, horns and all,
Adorns his throng'd and laughing hall;
But where he pray'd, and told his beads,
A thriving ash luxuriant spreads.
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 Lunatic Girl
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Three long and weary months -- yet not a whisper
Of stern reproach for that cold parting! Then
She sat no longer by her favorite fountain!--
She was at rest forever.
Sixth Sunday After Epiphany
© John Keble
There are, who darkling and alone,
Would wish the weary night were gone,
The House Of Dust: Part 03: 13: The half-shut doors through which we heard that music
© Conrad Aiken
The half-shut doors through which we heard that music
Are softly closed. Horns mutter down to silence.
The stars whirl out, the night grows deep.
Darkness settles upon us. A vague refrain
Drowsily teases at the drowsy brain.
In numberless rooms we stretch ourselves and sleep.
The House Of Dust: Part 03: 12: Witches' Sabbath
© Conrad Aiken
The walls and roofs, the scarlet towers,
Sank down behind a rushing sky.
He heard a sweet song just begun
Abruptly shatter in tones and die.
It whirled away. Cold silence fell.
And again came tollings of a bell.
The Jilted Lover To His Mother
© Edith Nesbit
You needn't pray for me, old lady, I don't want no one's prayer,
I'm fit and jolly as ever I was--you needn't think I care.
When I go whistling down the road, when the warm night is falling,
She needn't think I'm whistling her, it's another girl I'm calling.
The Warning
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
PATIENCE! I yet may pierce the rind
Wherewith are shrewdly girded round
The subtle secrets of his mind:
A dark, unwholesome core is bound
Perchance within it! Sir, you see,
Men are not what they seem to be!
The House Of Dust: Part 03: 06: Portrait Of One Dead
© Conrad Aiken
Here is the roomwith ghostly walls dissolving
The twilight room in which she called you 'lover';
And the floorless room in which she called you 'friend.'
So many times, in doubt, she ran between them!
Through windy corridors of darkening end.
The House Of Dust: Part 03: 04: Illicit
© Conrad Aiken
She played this tune. And in the middle of it
Abruptly broke it off, letting her hands
Fall in her lap. She sat there so a moment,
With shoulders drooped, then lifted up a rose,
One great white rose, wide opened like a lotos,
And pressed it to her cheek, and closed her eyes.
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 03: 01: As evening falls
© Conrad Aiken
As evening falls,
And the yellow lights leap one by one
Along high walls;
And along black streets that glisten as if with rain,
The House Of Dust: Part 02: 07: Two Lovers: Overtones
© Conrad Aiken
'One white rose . . . or is it pink, to-day?'
They pause and smile, not caring what they say,
If only they may talk.
The crowd flows past them like dividing waters.
Dreaming they stand, dreaming they walk.
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: 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: 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 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
