Snow falls. The sky is grey, and sullenly glares With purple lights in the canyoned street. The fiery sign on the dark tower wreathes and flares. . . The trodden grass in the park
THE HOUSE OF DUST A Symphony BY CONRAD AIKEN To Jessie NOTE . . . Parts of this poem have been printed in “The North American Review, Others, Poetry, Youth, Coterie, The Yale Review”.
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
‘Number four-the 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. . . One, who
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, Crash on a white sand shore. It is moonlight.
The white fog creeps from the cold sea over the city, Over the pale grey tumbled towers,- And settles among the roofs, the pale grey walls. Along damp sinuous streets it crawls, Curls like
1 Senlin sits before us, and we see him. He smokes his pipe before us, and we hear him. Is he small, with reddish hair, Does he light his pipe with meditative stare, And
The snow floats down upon us, mingled with rain. . . It eddies around pale lilac lamps, and falls Down golden-windowed walls. We were all born of flesh, in a flare of pain, We
Well,-it was two days after my husband died- Two days! And the earth still raw above him. And I was sweeping the carpet in their hall. In number four-the room with the red wall-paper-
He thinks her little feet should pass Where dandelions star thickly grass; Her hands should lift in sunlit air Sea-wind should tangle up her hair. Green leaves, he says, have never heard A sweeter
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
She looks out in the blue morning And sees a whole wonderful world She looks out in the morning And sees a whole world She leans out of the window And this is what
The cigarette-smoke loops and slides above us, Dipping and swirling as the waiter passes; You strike a match and stare upon the flame. The tiny fire leaps in your eyes a moment, And dwindles
After the movie, when the lights come up, He takes her powdered hand behind the wings; She, all in yellow, like a buttercup, Lifts her white face, yearns up to him, and clings; And
‘This envelope you say has something in it Which once belonged to your dead son-or something He knew, was fond of? Something he remembers?- The soul flies far, and we can only call it