Poems by Conrad Potter Aiken

All Poems Original Poems Translations

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Improvisations: Light And Snow: 03

The first bell is silver,

And breathing darkness I think only of the long scythe of time.

The second bell is crimson,

And I think of a holiday night, with rockets

Furrowing the sky with red, and a soft shatter of stars.

The third bell is saffron and slow,

And I behold a long sunset over the sea

With wall on wall of castled cloud and glittering balustrades.

by Conrad Potter Aiken

Evening Song Of Senlin

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 garden is silent.

I stand in my room alone.

Across my wall, from the far-off moon,

A rain of fire is thrown . . .

by Conrad Potter Aiken

Improvisations: Light And Snow: 15

The music of the morning is red and warm;

Snow lies against the walls;

And on the sloping roof in the yellow sunlight

Pigeons huddle against the wind.

The music of evening is attenuated and thin —

The moon seen through a wave by a mermaid;

The crying of a violin.

Far down there, far down where the river turns to the west,

by Conrad Potter Aiken

Improvisations: Light And Snow: 12

How many times have we been interrupted

Just as I was about to make up a story for you!

One time it was because we suddenly saw a firefly

Lighting his green lantern among the boughs of a fir-tree.

Marvellous! Marvellous! He is making for himself

A little tent of light in the darkness!

And one time it was because we saw a lilac lightning flash

Run wrinkling into the blue top of the mountain, —

by Conrad Potter Aiken

Improvisations: Light And Snow: 14

Like an old tree uprooted by the wind

And flung down cruelly

With roots bared to the sun and stars

And limp leaves brought to earth —

Torn from its house —

So do I seem to myself

When you have left me.

by Conrad Potter Aiken

Evensong

In the pale mauve twilight, streaked with orange,

Exquisitely sweet,—

She leaned upon her balcony and looked across the street;

And across the huddled roofs of the misty city,

Across the hills of tenements, so gray,

She looked into the west with a young and infinite pity,

With a young and wistful pity, as if to say

by Conrad Potter Aiken

How Is It That I Am Now So Softly Awakened

How is it that I am now so softly awakened,

My leaves shaken down with music?—

Darling, I love you.

It is not your mouth, for I have known mouths before,—

Though your mouth is more alive than roses,

Roses singing softly

To green leaves after rain.

It is not your eyes, for I have dived often in eyes,—

by Conrad Potter Aiken

Chance Meetings

In the mazes of loitering people, the watchful and furtive,

The shadows of tree-trunks and shadows of leaves,

In the drowse of the sunlight, among the low voices,

I suddenly face you,

Your dark eyes return for a space from her who is with you,

They shine into mine with a sunlit desire,

They say an 'I love you, what star do you live on?'

by Conrad Potter Aiken

Red Is The Color Of Blood

Red is the color of blood, and I will seek it:

I have sought it in the grass.

It is the color of steep sun seen through eyelids.

It is hidden under the suave flesh of women—

Flows there, quietly flows.

It mounts from the heart to the temples, the singing mouth—

As cold sap climbs to the rose.

by Conrad Potter Aiken

Beloved, Let Us Once More Praise The Rain

Beloved, let us once more praise the rain.

Let us discover some new alphabet,

For this, the often praised; and be ourselves,

The rain, the chickweed, and the burdock leaf,

The green-white privet flower, the spotted stone,

And all that welcomes the rain; the sparrow too,—

Who watches with a hard eye from seclusion,

Beneath the elm-tree bough, till rain is done.

by Conrad Potter Aiken

The House Of Dust: {Complete}

Part I. - Part 1.08

The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light.

The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:

And lights wink out through the windows, one by one.

A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night.

Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun.

And the wandering one, the inquisitive dreamer of dreams,

The eternal asker of answers, stands in the street,

by Conrad Potter Aiken

A Letter From Li Po

Fanfare of northwest wind, a bluejay wind

announces autumn, and the equinox

rolls back blue bays to a far afternoon.

Somewhere beyond the Gorge Li Po is gone,

looking for friendship or an old love's sleeve

or writing letters to his children, lost,

and to his children's children, and to us.

What was his light? of lamp or moon or sun?

by Conrad Potter Aiken