-
What did we build it for? Was it all a dream? . . .Ghostly above us in lamplight the towers gleam . . .And after a while they will fall to dust and rain;Or else we will tear them down with impatient hands;And hew rock out of the earth, and build them again.
Conrad Aiken -
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.
Conrad Aiken
-
And, growing tired, we turn aside at last,Remember our secret selves, seek out our towers,Lay weary hands on the banisters, and climb;Climbing, each, to his little four-square dreamOf love or lust or beauty or death or crime.
Conrad Aiken -
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.
Conrad Aiken -
Over the darkened city, the city of towers,The city of a thousand gates,Over the gleaming terraced roofs, the huddled towers,Over a somnolent whisper of loves and hates,The slow wind flows, drearily streams and falls,With a mournful sound down rain-dark walls.
Conrad Aiken -
Lovers walk in the noontime by that fountain.Pigeons dip their beaks to drink from the water.And soon the pond must freeze.
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.
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.
Conrad Aiken
-
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.
Conrad Aiken -
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.
Conrad Aiken -
'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.'
Conrad Aiken -
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.
Conrad Aiken -
Through soundless labyrinths of dream you pass,Through many doors to the one door of all.Soon as it's opened we shall hear a music:Or see a skeleton fall . . .
Conrad Aiken -
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.
Conrad Aiken
-
Two lovers move in the crowd like a link of music,We press upon them, we hold them, and let them pass;A chord of music strikes us and straight we tremble;We tremble like wind-blown grass.
Conrad Aiken -
In one room, silently, lover looks upon lover,And thinks the air is fire.
Conrad Aiken -
I love you, what star do you live on?
Conrad Aiken -
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.
Conrad Aiken -
And the shadows of tree-trunks and shadows of leavesInterlace with low voices and footsteps and sunlightTo divide us forever.
Conrad Aiken -
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.
Conrad Aiken
-
'I bound her to me in all soft ways,I bound her to me in a net of days,Yet now she has gone in silence and said no word.How can we face these dazzling things, I ask you?There is no use: we cry: and are not heard.
Conrad Aiken -
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.
Conrad Aiken -
My heart has become as hard as a city street,The horses trample upon it, it sings like iron,All day long and all night long they beat,They ring like the hooves of time.
Conrad Aiken -
Time is a dream, he thinks, a destroying dream;It lays great cities in dust, it fills the seas;It covers the face of beauty, and tumbles walls.Where was the woman he loved? Where was his youth?Where was the dream that burned his brain like fire?Even a dream grows grey at last and falls.
Conrad Aiken