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The House Of Dust: Part 01: 05: The Snow Floats Down Upon Us, Mingled With Rain

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 do not remember the red roots whence we rose,

But we know that we rose and walked, that after a while

We shall lie down again.

The snow floats down upon us, we turn, we turn,

Through gorges filled with light we sound and flow . . .

One is struck down and hurt, we crowd about him,

We bear him away, gaze after his listless body;

But whether he lives or dies we do not know.

One of us sings in the street, and we listen to him;

The words ring over us like vague bells of sorrow.

He sings of a house he lived in long ago.

It is strange; this house of dust was the house I lived in;

The house you lived in, the house that all of us know.

And coiling slowly about him, and laughing at him,

And throwing him pennies, we bear away

A mournful echo of other times and places,

And follow a dream . . . a dream that will not stay.

Down long broad flights of lamplit stairs we flow;

Noisy, in scattered waves, crowding and shouting;

In broken slow cascades.

The gardens extend before us . . . We spread out swiftly;

Trees are above us, and darkness. The canyon fades . . .

And we recall, with a gleaming stab of sadness,

Vaguely and incoherently, some dream

Of 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.

We flow to the east, to the white-lined shivering sea;

We reach to the west, where the whirling sun went down;

We close our eyes to music in bright cafees.

We diverge from clamorous streets to streets that are silent.

We loaf where the wind-spilled fountain plays.

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 dream

Of love or lust or beauty or death or crime.