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Nocturne Of Remembered Spring

by Conrad Potter Aiken

Moonlight silvers the tops of trees,

Moonlight whitens the lilac shadowed wall

And through the evening fall,

Clearly, as if through enchanted seas,

Footsteps passing, an infinite distance away,

In another world and another day.

Moonlight turns the purple lilacs blue,

Moonlight leaves the fountain hoar and old,

And the boughs of elms grow green and cold,

Our footsteps echo on gleaming stones,

The leaves are stirred to a jargon of muted tones.

This is the night we have kept, you say:

This is the moonlit night that will never die.

Through the grey streets our memories retain

Let us go back again.

II.

Mist goes up from the river to dim the stars,

The river is black and cold; so let us dance

To flare of horns, and clang of cymbals and drums;

And strew the glimmering floor with roses,

And remember, while the rich music yawns and closes,

With a luxury of pain, how silence comes.

Yes, we loved each other, long ago;

We moved like wind to a music's ebb and flow.

At a phrase from violins you closed your eyes,

And smiled, and let me lead you how young we were!

Your hair, upon that music, seemed to stir.

Let us return there, let us return, you and I;

Through changeless streets our memories retain

Let us go back again.

III.

Mist goes up from the rain steeped earth, and clings

Ghostly with lamplight among drenched maple trees.

We walk in silence and see how the lamplight flings

Fans of shadow upon it the music's mournful pleas

Die out behind us, the door is closed at last,

A net of silver silence is softly cast

Over our thought slowly we walk,

Quietly with delicious pause, we talk,

Of foolish trivial things; of life and death,

Time, and forgetfulness, and dust and truth;

Lilacs and youth.

You laugh, I hear the after taken breath,

You darken your eyes and turn away your head

At something I have said

Some intuition that flew too deep,

And struck a plageant chord.

Tonight, tonight you will remember it as you fall asleep,

Your dream will suddenly blossom with sharp delight,

Goodnight! You say.

The leaves of the lilac dip and sway;

The purple spikes of bloom

Nod their sweetness upon us, lift again,

Your white face turns, I am cought with pain

And silence descends, and dripping of dew from eaves,

And jeweled points of leaves.

IV.

I walk in a pleasure of sorrow along the street

And try to remember you; slow drops patter;

Water upon the lilacs has made them sweet;

I brush them with my sleeve, the cool drops scatter;

And suddenly I laugh and stand and listen

As if another had laughed a gust

Rustles the leaves, the wet spikes glisten;

And it seems as though it were you who had shaken the bough,

And spilled the fragrance I pursue your face again,

It grows more vague and lovely, it eludes me now.

I remember that you are gone, and drown in pain.

Something there was I said to you I recall,

Something just as the music seemed to fall

That made you laugh, and burns me still with pleasure.

What were those words the words like dripping fire?

I remember them now, and in sweet leisure

Rehearse the scene, more exquisite than before,

And you more beautiful, and I more wise.

Lilacs and spring, and night, and your clear eyes,

And you, in white, by the darkness of a door:

These things, like voices weaving to richest music,

Flow and fall in the cool night of my mind,

I pursue your ghost among green leaves that are ghostly,

I pursue you, but cannot find.

And suddenly, with a pang that is sweetest of all,

I become aware that I cannot remember you;

The ghost I knew

Has silently plunged in shadows, shadows that stream and fall.

Let us go in and dance once more

On the dream's glimmering floor,

Beneath the balcony festooned with roses.

Let us go in and dance once more.

The door behind us closes

Against an evening purple with stars and mist.

Let us go in and keep our tryst

With music and white roses, and spin around

In swirls of sound.

Do you forsee me, married and grown old?

And you, who smile about you at this room,

Is it foretold

That you must step from tumult into gloom,

Forget me, love another?

No, you are Cleopatra, fiercely young,

Laughing upon the topmost stair of night;

Roses upon the desert must be flung;

Above us, light by light,

Weaves the delirious darkness, petal fall,

And music breaks in waves on the pillared wall;

And you are Cleopatra, and do not care.

And so, in memory, you will always be

Young and foolish, a thing of dream and mist;

And so, perhaps when all is disillusioned,

And eternal spring returns once more,

Bringing a ghost of lovelier springs remembered,

You will remember me.

VI.

Yet when we meet we seem in silence to say,

Pretending serene forgetfulness of our youth,

"Do you remember but then why should you remember!

Do you remember a certain day,

Or evening rather, spring evening long ago,

We talked of death, and love, and time, and truth,

And said such wise things, things that amused us so

How foolish we were, who thought ourselves so wise!"

And then we laugh, with shadows in our eyes.