Conrad Aiken Quotes
-
We flow, we descend, we turn . . . and the eternal dreamerMoves among us like light, like evening air . . .
-
Lovers walk in the noontime by that fountain.Pigeons dip their beaks to drink from the water.And soon the pond must freeze.
-
And we recall, with a gleaming stab of sadness,Vaguely and incoherently, some dreamOf a world we came from, a world of sun-blue hills . . .A black wood whispers around us, green eyes gleam;Someone cries in the forest, and someone kills.
-
A small but brilliant advance made today by someone’s awareness may for the moment reach a very small audience, but insofar as it’s valid and beautiful, it will make its way and become part of the whole world of consciousness. So in that sense it’s all working toward this huge audience, and all working toward a better man.
-
From high black walls, gleaming vaguely with rain,Each yellow light looked down like a golden eye.They trembled from coign to coign, and tower to tower,Along high terraces quicker than dream they flew.And some of them steadily glowed, and some soon vanished,And some strange shadows threw.
-
All lovely things will have an ending,All lovely things will fade and die,And youth, that's now so bravely spending,Will beg a penny by and by.
-
We reach vague-gesturing hands, we lift our heads,Hear sounds far off,-and dream, with quivering breath,Our curious separate ways through life and death.
-
We rub the darkness from our eyes,And face our thousand devious secret mornings . . .And do not see how the pale mist, slowly ascending,Shaped by the sun, shines like a white-robed dreamerCompassionate over our towers bending.
-
The wind shrieks, the wind grieves;It dashes the leaves on walls, it whirls then again;And the enormous sleeper vaguely and stupidly dreamsAnd desires to stir, to resist a ghost of pain.
-
'I am the one you saw to-day, who fellSenseless before you, hearing a certain bell:A bell that broke great memories in my brain.'I am the one who passed unnoticed before you,Invisible, in a cloud of secret pain.'
-
'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.
-
Once I loved, and she I loved was darkened.Again I loved, and love itself was darkened.Vainly we follow the circle of shadowy days.The screen at last grows dark, the flutes are silent.The doors of night are closed. We go our ways.
-
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 young boy whistles, hurrying down the street,The young girl hums beneath her breath.One goes out to beauty, and does not know it.And one goes out to death.
-
Let us retrace our steps: I have deceived you:Nothing is here I could not frankly tell you:No hint of guilt, or faithlessness, or threat.Dreams-they are madness. Staring eyes-illusion.Let us return, hear music, and forget . . .
-
Something had changed-but it was not the street-The street was just the same-it was himself.
-
My heart is torn with the sound of raucous voices,They shout from the slums, from the streets, from the crowded places,And tunes from the hurdy-gurdy that coldly rejoicesShoot arrows into my heart.
-
Each gleaming point of light is like a seedDilating swiftly to coiling fires.Each cloud becomes a rapidly dimming face,Each hurrying face records its strange desires.
-
I love you, what star do you live on?
-
There, in the high bright window he dreams, and seesWhat we are blind to,-we who mass and crowdFrom wall to wall in the darkening of a cloud.
-
Come back, true love! Sweet youth, return!-But time goes on, and will, unheeding,Though hands will reach, and eyes will yearn,And the wild days set true hearts bleeding.
-
And there was one, beneath black eaves, who thought,Combing with lifted arms her golden hair,Of the lover who hurried towards her through the night;And there was one who dreamed of a sudden deathAs she blew out her light.
-
In one room, silently, lover looks upon lover,And thinks the air is fire.
-
What was this dream we had, a dream of music,Music that rose from the opening earth like magicAnd shook its beauty upon us and died away?The long cold streets extend once more before us.The red sun drops, the walls grow grey.