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The House of Dust - Part III - Complete

by Conrad Potter Aiken

As evening falls,

And the yellow lights leap one by one

Along high walls;

And along black streets that glisten as if with rain,

The muted city seems

Like one in a restless sleep, who lies and dreams

Of vague desires, and memories, and half-forgotten pain . . .

Along dark veins, like lights the quick dreams run,

Flash, are extinguished, flash again,

To mingle and glow at last in the enormous brain

And die away . . .

As evening falls,

A dream dissolves these insubstantial walls,

A myriad secretly gliding lights lie bare . . .

The lovers rise, the harlot combs her hair,

The dead man's face grows blue in the dizzy lamplight,

The watchman climbs the stair . . .

The bank defaulter leers at a chaos of figures,

And runs among them, and is beaten down;

The sick man coughs and hears the chisels ringing;

The tired clown

Sees the enormous crowd, a million faces,

Motionless in their places,

Ready to laugh, and seize, and crush and tear . . .

The dancer smooths her hair,

Laces her golden slippers, and runs through the door

To dance once more,

Hearing swift music like an enchantment rise,

Feeling the praise of a thousand eyes.

As darkness falls

The walls grow luminous and warm, the walls

Tremble and glow with the lives within them moving,

Moving like music, secret and rich and warm.

How shall we live tonight? Where shall we turn?

To what new light or darkness yearn?

A thousand winding stairs lead down before us;

And one by one in myriads we descend

By lamplit flowered walls, long balustrades,

Through half-lit halls which reach no end.

II. THE SCREEN MAIDEN

You read, what is it, then that you are reading?

What music moves so silently in your mind?

Your bright hand turns the page.

I watch you from my window, unsuspected:

You move in an alien land, a silent age . . .

. . . The poet, what was his name? Tokkei, Tokkei,

The poet walked alone in a cold late rain,

And thought his grief was like the crying of sea-birds;

For his lover was dead, he never would love again.

Rain in the dreams of the mind, rain forever,

Rain in the sky of the heart, rain in the willows,

But then he saw this face, this face like flame,

This quiet lady, this portrait by Hiroshigi;

And took it home with him; and with it came

What unexpected changes, subtle as weather!

The dark room, cold as rain,

Grew faintly fragrant, stirred with a stir of April,

Warmed its corners with light again,

And smoke of incense whirled about this portrait,

And the quiet lady there,

So young, so quietly smiling, with calm hands,

Seemed ready to loose her hair,

And smile, and lean from the picture, or say one word,

The word already clear,

Which seemed to rise like light between her eyelids . .

He held his breath to hear,

And smiled for shame, and drank a cup of wine,

And held a candle, and searched her face

Through all the little shadows, to see what secret

Might give so warm a grace . . .

Was it the quiet mouth, restrained a little?

The eyes, half-turned aside?

The jade ring on her wrist, still almost swinging? . . .

The secret was denied,

He chose his favorite pen and drew these verses,

And slept; and as he slept

A dream came into his heart, his lover entered,

And chided him, and wept.

And in the morning, waking, he remembered,

And thought the dream was strange.

Why did his darkened lover rise from the garden?

He turned, and felt a change,

As if a someone hidden smiled and watched him . . .

Yet there was only sunlight there.

Until he saw those young eyes, quietly smiling,

And held his breath to stare,

And could have sworn her cheek had turned, a little . . .

Had slightly turned away . . .

Sunlight dozed on the floor . . . He sat and wondered,

Nor left his room that day.

And that day, and for many days thereafter,

He sat alone, and thought

No lady had ever lived so beautiful

As Hiroshigi wrought . . .

Or if she lived, no matter in what country,

By what far river or hill or lonely sea,

He would look in every face until he found her . . .

There was no other as fair as she.

And before her quiet face he burned soft incense,

And brought her every day

Boughs of the peach, or almond, or snow-white cherry,

And somehow, she seemed to say,

That silent lady, young, and quietly smiling,

That she was happy there;

And sometimes, seeing this, he started to tremble,

And desired to touch her hair,

To lay his palm along her hand, touch faintly

With delicate finger-tips

The ghostly smile that seemed to hover and vanish

Upon her lips . . .

Until he knew he loved this quiet lady;

And night by night a dread

Leered at his dreams, for he knew that Hiroshigi

Was many centuries dead,

And the lady, too, was dead, and all who knew her . .

Dead, and long turned to dust . . .

The thin moon waxed and waned, and left him paler,

The peach leaves flew in a gust,

And he would surely have died; but there one day

A wise man, white with age,

Stared at the portrait, and said, 'This Hiroshigi

Knew more than archimage,

Cunningly drew the body, and called the spirit,

Till partly it entered there . . .

Sometimes, at death, it entered the portrait wholly . .

Do all I say with care,

And she you love may come to you when you call her . . . '

So then this ghost, Tokkei,

Ran in the sun, bought wine of a hundred merchants,

And alone at the end of day

Entered the darkening room, and faced the portrait,

And saw the quiet eyes

Gleaming and young in the dusk, and held the wine-cup,

And knelt, and did not rise,

And said, aloud, 'Lo-san, will you drink this wine?'

Said it three times aloud.

And at the third the faint blue smoke of incense

Rose to the walls in a cloud,

And the lips moved faintly, and the eyes, and the calm hands stirred;

And suddenly, with a sigh,

The quiet lady came slowly down from the portrait,

And stood, while worlds went by,

And lifted her young white hands and took the wine cup;

And the poet trembled, and said,

'Lo-san, will you stay forever?' 'Yes, I will stay.'

'But what when I am dead?'

'When you are dead your spirit will find my spirit,

And then we shall die no more.'

Music came down upon them, and spring returning,

They remembered worlds before,

And years went over the earth, and over the sea,

And lovers were born and spoke and died,

But forever in sunlight went these two immortal,

Tokkei and the quiet bride . . .

III. HAUNTED CHAMBERS

The lamplit page is turned, the dream forgotten;

The music changes tone, you wake, remember

Deep worlds you lived before, deep worlds hereafter

Of leaf on falling leaf, music on music,

Rain and sorrow and wind and dust and laughter.

Helen was late and Miriam came too soon.

Joseph was dead, his wife and children starving.

Elaine was married and soon to have a child.

You dreamed last night of fiddler-crabs with fiddles;

They played a buzzing melody, and you smiled.

To-morrow, what? And what of yesterday?

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 . . .

We walk with you. Where is it that you lead us?

We climb the muffled stairs beneath high lanterns.

We descend again. We grope through darkened cells.

You say: this darkness, here, will slowly kill me.

It creeps and weighs upon me . . . Is full of bells.

This is the thing remembered I would forget,

No matter where I go, how soft I tread,

This windy gesture menaces me with death.

Fatigue! it says, and points its finger at me;

Touches my throat and stops my breath.

My fans, my jewels, the portrait of my husband,

The torn certificate for my daughter's grave,

These are but mortal seconds in immortal time.

They brush me, fade away: like drops of water.

They signify no crime.

Let us retrace our steps: I have deceived you:

Nothing is here I could not frankly tell you:

No hint of guilt, or faithlessness, or threat.

Dreams, they are madness. Staring eyes, illusion.

Let us return, hear music, and forget . . .

IV. ILLICIT

Of what she said to me that night, no matter.

The strange thing came next day.

My brain was full of music, something she played me;

I couldn't remember it all, but phrases of it

Wreathed and wreathed among faint memories,

Seeking for something, trying to tell me something,

Urging to restlessness: verging on grief.

I tried to play the tune, from memory,

But memory failed: the chords and discords climbed

And found no resolution, only hung there,

And left me morbid . . . Where, then, had I heard it? . . .

What secret dusty chamber was it hinting?

'Dust', it said, 'dust . . . and dust . . . and sunlight . .

A cold clear April evening . . . snow, bedraggled,

Rain-worn snow, dappling the hideous grass . . .

And someone walking alone; and someone saying

That all must end, for the time had come to go . . . '

These were the phrases . . . but behind, beneath them

A greater shadow moved: and in this shadow

I stood and guessed . . . Was it the blue-eyed lady?

The one who always danced in golden slippers,

And had I danced with her, upon this music?

Or was it further back, the unplumbed twilight

Of childhood? No, much recenter than that.

You know, without my telling you, how sometimes

A word or name eludes you, and you seek it

Through running ghosts of shadow, leaping at it,

Lying in wait for it to spring upon it,

Spreading faint snares for it of sense or sound:

Until, of a sudden, as if in a phantom forest,

You hear it, see it flash among the branches,

And scarcely knowing how, suddenly have it,

Well, it was so I followed down this music,

Glimpsing a face in darkness, hearing a cry,

Remembering days forgotten, moods exhausted,

Corners in sunlight, puddles reflecting stars;

Until, of a sudden, and least of all suspected,

The thing resolved itself: and I remembered

An April afternoon, eight years ago,

Or was it nine? no matter, call it nine,

A room in which the last of sunlight faded;

A vase of violets, fragrance in white curtains;

And, she who played the same thing later, playing.

She played this tune. And in the middle of it

Abruptly broke it off, letting her hands

Fall in her lap. She sat there so a moment,

With shoulders drooped, then lifted up a rose,

One great white rose, wide opened like a lotos,

And pressed it to her cheek, and closed her eyes.

'You know, we've got to end this, Miriam loves you . . .

If she should ever know, or even guess it,

What would she do? Listen! I'm not absurd . . .

I'm sure of it. If you had eyes, for women,

To understand them, which you've never had,

You'd know it too . . . ' So went this colloquy,

Half humorous, with undertones of pathos,

Half grave, half flippant . . . while her fingers, softly,

Felt for this tune, played it and let it fall,

Now note by singing note, now chord by chord,

Repeating phrases with a kind of pleasure . . .

Was it symbolic of the woman's weakness

That she could neither break it, nor conclude?

It paused . . . and wandered . . . paused again; while she,

Perplexed and tired, half told me I must go,

Half asked me if I thought I ought to go . . .

Well, April passed with many other evenings,

Evenings like this, with later suns and warmer,

With violets always there, and fragrant curtains . . .

And she was right: and Miriam found it out . . .

And after that, when eight deep years had passed,

Or nine, we met once more, by accident . . .

But was it just by accident, I wonder,

She played this tune? Or what, then, was intended? . . .

V. MELODY IN A RESTAURANT

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 away as silently as it came.

This melody, you say, has certain voices,

They rise like nereids from a river, singing,

Lift white faces, and dive to darkness again.

Wherever you go you bear this river with you:

A leaf falls, and it flows, and you have pain.

So says the tune to you, but what to me?

What to the waiter, as he pours your coffee,

The violinist who suavely draws his bow?

That man, who folds his paper, overhears it.

A thousand dreams revolve and fall and flow.

Some one there is who sees a virgin stepping

Down marble stairs to a deep tomb of roses:

At the last moment she lifts remembering eyes.

Green leaves blow down. The place is checked with shadows.

A long-drawn murmur of rain goes down the skies.

And oaks are stripped and bare, and smoke with lightning:

And clouds are blown and torn upon high forests,

And the great sea shakes its walls.

And then falls silence . . . And through long silence falls

This melody once more:

'Down endless stairs she goes, as once before.'

So says the tune to him, but what to me?

What are the worlds I see?

What shapes fantastic, terrible dreams? . . .

I go my secret way, down secret alleys;

My errand is not so simple as it seems.

VI. PORTRAIT OF ONE DEAD

This is the house. On one side there is darkness,

On one side there is light.

Into the darkness you may lift your lanterns,

O, any number, it will still be night.

And here are echoing stairs to lead you downward

To long sonorous halls.

And here is spring forever at these windows,

With roses on the walls.

This is her room. On one side there is music,

On one side not a sound.

At one step she could move from love to silence,

Feel myriad darkness coiling round.

And here are balconies from which she heard you,

Your steady footsteps on the stair.

And here the glass in which she saw your shadow

As she unbound her hair.

Here is the room, with ghostly walls dissolving,

The twilight room in which she called you 'lover';

And the floorless room in which she called you 'friend.'

So many times, in doubt, she ran between them!

Through windy corridors of darkening end.

Here she could stand with one dim light above her

And hear far music, like a sea in caverns,

Murmur away at hollowed walls of stone.

And here, in a roofless room where it was raining,

She bore the patient sorrow of rain alone.

Your words were walls which suddenly froze around her.

Your words were windows, large enough for moonlight,

Too small to let her through.

Your letters, fragrant cloisters faint with music.

The music that assuaged her there was you.

How many times she heard your step ascending

Yet never saw your face!

She heard them turn again, ring slowly fainter,

Till silence swept the place.

Why had you gone? . . . The door, perhaps, mistaken . . .

You would go elsewhere. The deep walls were shaken.

A certain rose-leaf, sent without intention,

Became, with time, a woven web of fire,

She wore it, and was warm.

A certain hurried glance, let fall at parting,

Became, with time, the flashings of a storm.

Yet, there was nothing asked, no hint to tell you

Of secret idols carved in secret chambers

From all you did and said.

Nothing was done, until at last she knew you.

Nothing was known, till, somehow, she was dead.

How did she die? You say, she died of poison.

Simple and swift. And much to be regretted.

You did not see her pass

So many thousand times from light to darkness,

Pausing so many times before her glass;

You did not see how many times she hurried

To lean from certain windows, vainly hoping,

Passionate still for beauty, remembered spring.

You did not know how long she clung to music,

You did not hear her sing.

Did she, then, make the choice, and step out bravely

From sound to silence, close, herself, those windows?

Or was it true, instead,

That darkness moved, for once, and so possessed her? . . .

We'll never know, you say, for she is dead.

VII. PORCELAIN

You see that porcelain ranged there in the window,

Platters and soup-plates done with pale pink rosebuds,

And tiny violets, and wreaths of ivy?

See how the pattern clings to the gleaming edges!

They're works of art, minutely seen and felt,

Each petal done devoutly. Is it failure

To spend your blood like this?

Study them . . . you will see there, in the porcelain,

If you stare hard enough, a sort of swimming

Of lights and shadows, ghosts within a crystal,

My brain unfolding! There you'll see me sitting

Day after day, close to a certain window,

Looking down, sometimes, to see the people . . .

Sometimes my wife comes there to speak to me . . .

Sometimes the grey cat waves his tail around me . . .

Goldfish swim in a bowl, glisten in sunlight,

Dilate to a gorgeous size, blow delicate bubbles,

Drowse among dark green weeds. On rainy days,

You'll see a gas-light shedding light behind me,

An eye-shade round my forehead. There I sit,

Twirling the tiny brushes in my paint-cups,

Painting the pale pink rosebuds, minute violets,

Exquisite wreaths of dark green ivy leaves.

On this leaf, goes a dream I dreamed last night

Of two soft-patterned toads, I thought them stones,

Until they hopped! And then a great black spider,

Tarantula, perhaps, a hideous thing,

It crossed the room in one tremendous leap.

Here, as I coil the stems between two leaves,

It is as if, dwindling to atomy size,

I cried the secret between two universes . . .

A friend of mine took hasheesh once, and said

Just as he fell asleep he had a dream,

Though with his eyes wide open,

And felt, or saw, or knew himself a part

Of marvelous slowly-wreathing intricate patterns,

Plane upon plane, depth upon coiling depth,

Amazing leaves, folding one on another,

Voluted grasses, twists and curves and spirals,

All of it darkly moving . . . as for me,

I need no hasheesh for it, it's too easy!

Soon as I shut my eyes I set out walking

In a monstrous jungle of monstrous pale pink roseleaves,

Violets purple as death, dripping with water,

And ivy-leaves as big as clouds above me.

Here, in a simple pattern of separate violets,

With scalloped edges gilded, here you have me

Thinking of something else. My wife, you know,

There's something lacking, force, or will, or passion,

I don't know what it is, and so, sometimes,

When I am tired, or haven't slept three nights,

Or it is cloudy, with low threat of rain,

I get uneasy, just like poplar trees

Ruffling their leaves, and I begin to think

Of poor Pauline, so many years ago,

And that delicious night. Where is she now?

I meant to write, but she has moved, by this time,

And then, besides, she might find out I'm married.

Well, there is more, I'm getting old and timid,

The years have gnawed my will. I've lost my nerve!

I never strike out boldly as I used to,

But sit here, painting violets, and remember

That thrilling night. Photographers, she said,

Asked her to pose for them; her eyes and forehead,

Dark brown eyes, and a smooth and pallid forehead,

Were thought so beautiful. And so they were.

Pauline . . . These violets are like words remembered . . .

Darling! she whispered . . . Darling! . . . Darling! . . . Darling!

Well, I suppose such days can come but once.

Lord, how happy we were! . . .

Here, if you only knew it, is a story,

Here, in these leaves. I stopped my work to tell it,

And then, when I had finished, went on thinking:

A man I saw on a train . . . I was still a boy . . .

Who killed himself by diving against a wall.

Here is a recollection of my wife,

When she was still my sweetheart, years ago.

It's funny how things change, just change, by growing,

Without an effort . . . And here are trivial things,

A chill, an errand forgotten, a cut while shaving;

A friend of mine who tells me he is married . . .

Or is that last so trivial? Well, no matter!

This is the sort of thing you'll see of me,

If you look hard enough. This, in its way,

Is a kind of fame. My life arranged before you

In scrolls of leaves, rosebuds, violets, ivy,

Clustered or wreathed on plate and cup and platter . . .

Sometimes, I say, I'm just like John the Baptist,

You have my head before you . . . on a platter.

VIII. COFFINS: INTERLUDE

Wind blows. Snow falls. The great clock in its tower

Ticks with reverberant coil and tolls the hour:

At the deep sudden stroke the pigeons fly . . .

The fine snow flutes the cracks between the flagstones.

We close our coats, and hurry, and search the sky.

We are like music, each voice of it pursuing

A golden separate dream, remote, persistent,

Climbing to fire, receding to hoarse despair.

What do you whisper, brother? What do you tell me? . . .

We pass each other, are lost, and do not care.

One mounts up to beauty, serenely singing,

Forgetful of the steps that cry behind him;

One drifts slowly down from a waking dream.

One, foreseeing, lingers forever unmoving . . .

Upward and downward, past him there, we stream.

One has death in his eyes: and walks more slowly.

Death, among jonquils, told him a freezing secret.

A cloud blows over his eyes, he ponders earth.

He sees in the world a forest of sunlit jonquils:

A slow black poison huddles beneath that mirth.

Death, from street to alley, from door to window,

Cries out his news, of unplumbed worlds approaching,

Of a cloud of darkness soon to destroy the tower.

But why comes death, he asks, in a world so perfect?

Or why the minute's grey in the golden hour?

Music, a sudden glissando, sinister, troubled,

A drift of wind-torn petals, before him passes

Down jangled streets, and dies.

The bodies of old and young, of maimed and lovely,

Are slowly borne to earth, with a dirge of cries.

Down cobbled streets they come; down huddled stairways;

Through silent halls; through carven golden doorways;

From freezing rooms as bare as rock.

The curtains are closed across deserted windows.

Earth streams out of the shovel; the pebbles knock.

Mary, whose hands rejoiced to move in sunlight;

Silent Elaine; grave Anne, who sang so clearly;

Fugitive Helen, who loved and walked alone;

Miriam too soon dead, darkly remembered;

Childless Ruth, who sorrowed, but could not atone;

Jean, whose laughter flashed over depths of terror,

And Eloise, who desired to love but dared not;

Doris, who turned alone to the dark and cried,

They are blown away like windflung chords of music,

They drift away; the sudden music has died.

And one, with death in his eyes, comes walking slowly

And sees the shadow of death in many faces,

And thinks the world is strange.

He desires immortal music and spring forever,

And beauty that knows no change.

IX. CABARET

We sit together and talk, or smoke in silence.

You say (but use no words) 'this night is passing

As other nights when we are dead will pass . . .'

Perhaps I misconstrue you: you mean only,

'How deathly pale my face looks in that glass . . .'

You say: 'We sit and talk, of things important . . .

How many others like ourselves, this instant,

Mark the pendulum swinging against the wall?

How many others, laughing, sip their coffee,

Or stare at mirrors, and do not talk at all? . . .

'This is the moment' (so you would say, in silence)

When suddenly we have had too much of laughter:

And a freezing stillness falls, no word to say.

Our mouths feel foolish . . . For all the days hereafter

What have we saved, what news, what tune, what play?

'We see each other as vain and futile tricksters,

Posturing like bald apes before a mirror;

No pity dims our eyes . . .

How many others, like ourselves, this instant,

See how the great world wizens, and are wise? . . .'

Well, you are right . . . No doubt, they fall, these seconds . . .

When suddenly all's distempered, vacuous, ugly,

And even those most like angels creep for schemes.

The one you love leans forward, smiles, deceives you,

Opens a door through which you see dark dreams.

But this is momentary . . . or else, enduring,

Leads you with devious eyes through mists and poisons

To horrible chaos, or suicide, or crime . . .

And all these others who at your conjuration

Grow pale, feeling the skeleton touch of time,

Or, laughing sadly, talk of things important,

Or stare at mirrors, startled to see their faces,

Or drown in the waveless vacuum of their days,

Suddenly, as from sleep, awake, forgetting

This nauseous dream; take up their accustomed ways,

Exhume the ghost of a joke, renew loud laughter,

Forget the moles above their sweethearts' eyebrows,

Lean to the music, rise,

And dance once more in a rose-festooned illusion

With kindness in their eyes . . .

They say (as we ourselves have said, remember)

'What wizardry this slow waltz works upon us!

And how it brings to mind forgotten things!'

They say 'How strange it is that one such evening

Can wake vague memories of so many springs!'

And so they go . . . In a thousand crowded places,

They sit to smile and talk, or rise to ragtime,

And, for their pleasures, agree or disagree.

With secret symbols they play on secret passions.

With cunning eyes they see

The innocent word that sets remembrance trembling,

The dubious word that sets the scared heart beating . . .

The pendulum on the wall

Shakes down seconds . . . They laugh at time, dissembling;

Or coil for a victim and do not talk at all.

X. LETTER

From time to time, lifting his eyes, he sees

The soft blue starlight through the one small window,

The moon above black trees, and clouds, and Venus,

And turns to write . . . The clock, behind ticks softly.

It is so long, indeed, since I have written,

Two years, almost, your last is turning yellow,

That these first words I write seem cold and strange.

Are you the man I knew, or have you altered?

Altered, of course, just as I too have altered,

And whether towards each other, or more apart,

We cannot say . . . I've just re-read your letter,

Not through forgetfulness, but more for pleasure.

Pondering much on all you say in it

Of mystic consciousness, divine conversion,

The sense of oneness with the infinite,

Faith in the world, its beauty, and its purpose . . .

Well, you believe one must have faith, in some sort,

If one's to talk through this dark world contented.

But is the world so dark? Or is it rather

Our own brute minds, in which we hurry, trembling,

Through streets as yet unlighted? This, I think.

You have been always, let me say, "romantic,"

Eager for color, for beauty, soon discontented

With a world of dust and stones and flesh too ailing:

Even before the question grew to problem

And drove you bickering into metaphysics,

You met on lower planes the same great dragon,

Seeking release, some fleeting satisfaction,

In strange aesthetics . . . You tried, as I remember,

One after one, strange cults, and some, too, morbid,

The cruder first, more violent sensations,

Gorgeously carnal things, conceived and acted

With splendid animal thirst . . . Then, by degrees,

Savoring all more delicate gradations

In all that hue and tone may play on flesh,

Or thought on brain, you passed, if I may say so,

From red and scarlet through morbid greens to mauve.

Let us regard ourselves, you used to say,

As instruments of music, whereon our lives

Will play as we desire: and let us yield

These subtle bodies and subtler brains and nerves

To all experience plays . . . And so you went

From subtle tune to subtler, each heard once,

Twice or thrice at the most, tiring of each;

And closing one by one your doors, drew in

Slowly, through darkening labyrinths of feeling,

Towards the central chamber . . . Which now you've reached.

What, then's, the secret of this ultimate chamber,

Or innermost, rather? If I see it clearly

It is the last, and cunningest, resort

Of one who has found this world of dust and flesh,

This world of lamentations, death, injustice,

Sickness, humiliation, slow defeat,

Bareness, and ugliness, and iteration,

Too meaningless; or, if it has a meaning,

Too tiresomely insistent on one meaning:

Futility . . . This world, I hear you saying,

With lifted chin, and arm in outflung gesture,

Coldly imperious, this transient world,

What has it then to give, if not containing

Deep hints of nobler worlds? We know its beauties,

Momentary and trivial for the most part,

Perceived through flesh, passing like flesh away,

And know how much outweighed they are by darkness.

We are like searchers in a house of darkness,

A house of dust; we creep with little lanterns,

Throwing our tremulous arcs of light at random,

Now here, now there, seeing a plane, an angle,

An edge, a curve, a wall, a broken stairway

Leading to who knows what; but never seeing

The whole at once . . . We grope our way a little,

And then grow tired. No matter what we touch,

Dust is the answer, dust: dust everywhere.

If this were all, what were the use, you ask?

But this is not: for why should we be seeking,

Why should we bring this need to seek for beauty,

To lift our minds, if there were only dust?

This is the central chamber you have come to:

Turning your back to the world, until you came

To this deep room, and looked through rose-stained windows,

And saw the hues of the world so sweetly changed.

Well, in a measure, so only do we all.

I am not sure that you can be refuted.

At the very last we all put faith in something,

You in this ghost that animates your world,

This ethical ghost, and I, you'll say, in reason,

Or sensuous beauty, or in my secret self . . .

Though as for that you put your faith in these,

As much as I do, and then, forsaking reason,

Ascending, you would say, to intuition,

You predicate this ghost of yours, as well.

Of course, you might have argued, and you should have,

That no such deep appearance of design

Could shape our world without entailing purpose:

For can design exist without a purpose?

Without conceiving mind? . . . We are like children

Who find, upon the sands, beside a sea,

Strange patterns drawn, circles, arcs, ellipses,

Moulded in sand . . . Who put them there, we wonder?

Did someone draw them here before we came?

Or was it just the sea? We pore upon them,

But find no answer, only suppositions.

And if these perfect shapes are evidence

Of immanent mind, it is but circumstantial:

We never come upon him at his work,

He never troubles us. He stands aloof,

Well, if he stands at all: is not concerned

With what we are or do. You, if you like,

May think he broods upon us, loves us, hates us,

Conceives some purpose of us. In so doing

You see, without much reason, will in law.

I am content to say, 'this world is ordered,

Happily so for us, by accident:

We go our ways untroubled save by laws

Of natural things.' Who makes the more assumption?

If we were wise, which God knows we are not,

(Notice I call on God!) we'd plumb this riddle

Not in the world we see, but in ourselves.

These brains of ours, these delicate spinal clusters,

Have limits: why not learn them, learn their cravings?

Which of the two minds, yours or mine, is sound?

Yours, which scorned the world that gave it freedom,

Until you managed to see that world as omen,

Or mine, which likes the world, takes all for granted,

Sorrow as much as joy, and death as life?

You lean on dreams, and take more credit for it.

I stand alone . . . Well, I take credit, too.

You find your pleasure in being at one with all things,

Fusing in lambent dream, rising and falling

As all things rise and fall . . . I do that too,

With reservations. I find more varied pleasure

In understanding: and so find beauty even

In this strange dream of yours you call the truth.

Well, I have bored you. And it's growing late.

For household news, what have you heard, I wonder?

You must have heard that Paul was dead, by this time,

Of spinal cancer. Nothing could be done,

We found it out too late. His death has changed me,

Deflected much of me that lived as he lived,

Saddened me, slowed me down. Such things will happen,

Life is composed of them; and it seems wisdom

To see them clearly, meditate upon them,

And understand what things flow out of them.

Otherwise, all goes on here much as always.

Why won't you come and see us, in the spring,

And bring old times with you? If you could see me

Sitting here by the window, watching Venus

Go down behind my neighbor's poplar branches,

Just where you used to sit, I'm sure you'd come.

This year, they say, the springtime will be early.

XI. CONVERSATION: UNDERTONES

What shall we talk of? Li Po? Hokusai?

You narrow your long dark eyes to fascinate me;

You smile a little. . . .Outside, the night goes by.

I walk alone in a forest of ghostly trees . . .

Your pale hands rest palm downwards on your knees.

'These lines, converging, they suggest such distance!

The soul is drawn away, beyond horizons.

Lured out to what? One dares not think.

Sometimes, I glimpse these infinite perspectives

In intimate talk (with such as you) and shrink . . .

'One feels so petty! One feels such emptiness! '

You mimic horror, let fall your lifted hand,

And smile at me; with brooding tenderness . . .

Alone on darkened waters I fall and rise;

Slow waves above me break, faint waves of cries.

'And then these colors . . . but who would dare describe them?

This faint rose-coral pink . . this green pistachio?

So insubstantial! Like the dim ghostly things

Two lovers find in love's still-twilight chambers . . .

Old peacock-fans, and fragrant silks, and rings . . .

'Rings, let us say, drawn from the hapless fingers

Of some great lady, many centuries nameless,

Or is that too sepulchral? dulled with dust;

And necklaces that crumble if you touch them;

And gold brocades that, breathed on, fall to rust.

'No I am wrong . . . it is not these I sought for!

Why did they come to mind? You understand me

You know these strange vagaries of the brain!'

I walk alone in a forest of ghostly trees;

Your pale hands rest palm downwards on your knees;

These strange vagaries of yours are all too plain.

'But why perplex ourselves with tedious problems

Of art or . . . such things? . . . while we sit here, living,

With all that's in our secret hearts to say!'

Hearts? Your pale hand softly strokes the satin.

You play deep music, know well what you play.

You stroke the satin with thrilling of finger-tips,

You smile, with faintly perfumed lips,

You loose your thoughts like birds,

Brushing our dreams with soft and shadowy words . .

We know your words are foolish, yet sit here bound

In tremulous webs of sound.

'How beautiful is intimate talk like this!

It is as if we dissolved grey walls between us,

Stepped through the solid portals, become but shadows,

To hear a hidden music . . . Our own vast shadows

Lean to a giant size on the windy walls,

Or dwindle away; we hear our soft footfalls

Echo forever behind us, ghostly clear,

Music sings far off, flows suddenly near,

And dies away like rain . . .

We walk through subterranean caves again,

Vaguely above us feeling

A shadowy weight of frescos on the ceiling,

Strange half-lit things,

Soundless grotesques with writhing claws and wings . . .

And here a beautiful face looks down upon us;

And someone hurries before, unseen, and sings . . .

Have we seen all, I wonder, in these chambers,

Or is there yet some gorgeous vault, arched low,

Where sleeps an amazing beauty we do not know? . . '

The question falls: we walk in silence together,

Thinking of that deep vault and of its secret . . .

This lamp, these books, this fire

Are suddenly blown away in a whistling darkness.

Deep walls crash down in the whirlwind of desire.

XII. WITCHES' SABBATH

Now, when the moon slid under the cloud

And the cold clear dark of starlight fell,

He heard in his blood the well-known bell

Tolling slowly in heaves of sound,

Slowly beating, slowly beating,

Shaking its pulse on the stagnant air:

Sometimes it swung completely round,

Horribly gasping as if for breath;

Falling down with an anguished cry . . .

Now the red bat, he mused, will fly;

Something is marked, this night, for death . . .

And while he mused, along his blood

Flew ghostly voices, remote and thin,

They rose in the cavern of his brain,

Like ghosts they died away again;

And hands upon his heart were laid,

And music upon his flesh was played,

Until, as he was bidden to do,

He walked the wood he so well knew.

Through the cold dew he moved his feet,

And heard far off, as under the earth,

Discordant music in shuddering tones,

Screams of laughter, horrible mirth,

Clapping of hands, and thudding of drums,

And the long-drawn wail of one in pain.

To-night, he thought, I shall die again,

We shall die again in the red-eyed fire

To meet on the edge of the wood beyond

With the placid gaze of fed desire . . .

He walked; and behind the whisper of trees,

In and out, one walked with him:

She parted the branches and peered at him,

Through lowered lids her two eyes burned,

He heard her breath, he saw her hand,

Wherever he turned his way, she turned:

Kept pace with him, now fast, now slow;

Moving her white knees as he moved . . .

This is the one I have always loved;

This is the one whose bat-soul comes

To dance with me, flesh to flesh,

In the starlight dance of horns and drums . . .

The walls and roofs, the scarlet towers,

Sank down behind a rushing sky.

He heard a sweet song just begun

Abruptly shatter in tones and die.

It whirled away. Cold silence fell.

And again came tollings of a bell.

* * * * *

This air is alive with witches: the white witch rides

Swifter than smoke on the starlit wind.

In the clear darkness, while the moon hides,

They come like dreams, like something remembered . .

Let us hurry! beloved; take my hand,

Forget these things that trouble your eyes,

Forget, forget! Our flesh is changed,

Lighter than smoke we wreathe and rise . . .

The cold air hisses between us . . . Beloved, beloved,

What was the word you said?

Something about clear music that sang through water . . .

I cannot remember. The storm-drops break on the leaves.

Something was lost in the darkness. Someone is dead.

Someone lies in the garden and grieves.

Look how the branches are tossed in this air,

Flinging their green to the earth!

Black clouds rush to devour the stars in the sky,

The moon stares down like a half-closed eye.

The leaves are scattered, the birds are blown,

Oaks crash down in the darkness,

We run from our windy shadows; we are running alone.

* * * * *

The moon was darkened: across it flew

The swift grey tenebrous shape he knew,

Like a thing of smoke it crossed the sky,

The witch! he said. And he heard a cry,

And another came, and another came,

And one, grown duskily red with blood,

Floated an instant across the moon,

Hung like a dull fantastic flame . . .

The earth has veins: they throb to-night,

The earth swells warm beneath my feet,

The tips of the trees grow red and bright,

The leaves are swollen, I feel them beat,

They press together, they push and sigh,

They listen to hear the great bat cry,

The great red bat with the woman's face . . .

Hurry! he said. And pace for pace

That other, who trod the dark with him,

Crushed the live leaves, reached out white hands

And closed her eyes, the better to see

The priests with claws, the lovers with hooves,

The fire-lit rock, the sarabands.

I am here! she said. The bough he broke,

Was it the snapping bough that spoke?

I am here! she said. The white thigh gleamed

Cold in starlight among dark leaves,

The head thrown backward as he had dreamed,

The shadowy red deep jasper mouth;

And the lifted hands, and the virgin breasts,

Passed beside him, and vanished away.

I am here! she cried. He answered 'Stay!'

And laughter arose, and near and far

Answering laughter rose and died . . .

Who is there? in the dark? he cried.

He stood in terror, and heard a sound

Of terrible hooves on the hollow ground;

They rushed, were still; a silence fell;

And he heard deep tollings of a bell.

* * * * *

Look beloved! Why do you hide your face?

Look, in the centre there, above the fire,

They are bearing the boy who blasphemed love!

They are playing a piercing music upon him

With a bow of living wire! . . .

The virgin harlot sings,

She leans above the beautiful anguished body,

And draws slow music from those strings.

They dance around him, they fling red roses upon him,

They trample him with their naked feet,

His cries are lost in laughter,

Their feet grow dark with his blood, they beat and

beat,

They dance upon him, until he cries no more . . .

Have we not heard that cry before?

Somewhere, somewhere,

Beside a sea, in the green evening,

Beneath green clouds, in a copper sky . . .

Was it you? was it I?

They have quenched the fires, they dance in the darkness,

The satyrs have run among them to seize and tear,

Look! he has caught one by the hair,

She screams and falls, he bears her away with him,

And the night grows full of whistling wings.

Far off, one voice, serene and sweet,

Rises and sings . . .

'By the clear waters where once I died,

In the calm evening bright with stars. . . .'

Where have I heard these words? Was it you who sang them?

It was long ago.

Let us hurry, beloved! the hard hooves trample;

The treetops tremble and glow.

* * * * *

In the clear dark, on silent wings,

The red bat hovers beneath her moon;

She drops through the fragrant night, and clings

Fast in the shadow, with hands like claws,

With soft eyes closed and mouth that feeds,

To the young white flesh that warmly bleeds.

The maidens circle in dance, and raise

From lifting throats, a soft-sung praise;

Their knees and breasts are white and bare,

They have hung pale roses in their hair,

Each of them as she dances by

Peers at the blood with a narrowed eye.

See how the red wing wraps him round,

See how the white youth struggles in vain!

The weak arms writhe in a soundless pain;

He writhes in the soft red veiny wings,

But still she whispers upon him and clings. . . .

This is the secret feast of love,

Look well, look well, before it dies,

See how the red one trembles above,

See how quiet the white one lies! . . . .

Wind through the trees. . . .and a voice is heard

Singing far off. The dead leaves fall. . . .

'By the clear waters where once I died,

In the calm evening bright with stars,

One among numberless avatars,

I wedded a mortal, a mortal bride,

And lay on the stones and gave my flesh,

And entered the hunger of him I loved.

How shall I ever escape this mesh

Or be from my lover's body removed?'

Dead leaves stream through the hurrying air

And the maenads dance with flying hair.

* * * * *

The priests with hooves, the lovers with horns,

Rise in the starlight, one by one,

They draw their knives on the spurting throats,

They smear the column with blood of goats,

They dabble the blood on hair and lips

And wait like stones for the moon's eclipse.

They stand like stones and stare at the sky

Where the moon leers down like a half-closed eye. . .

In the green moonlight still they stand

While wind flows over the darkened sand

And brood on the soft forgotten things

That filled their shadowy yesterdays. . . .

Where are the breasts, the scarlet wings? . . . .

They gaze at each other with troubled gaze. . . .

And then, as the shadow closes the moon,

Shout, and strike with their hooves the ground,

And rush through the dark, and fill the night

With a slowly dying clamor of sound.

There, where the great walls crowd the stars,

There, by the black wind-riven walls,

In a grove of twisted leafless trees. . . .

Who are these pilgrims, who are these,

These three, the one of whom stands upright,

While one lies weeping and one of them crawls?

The face that he turned was a wounded face,

I heard the dripping of blood on stones. . . .

Hooves had trampled and torn this place,

And the leaves were strewn with blood and bones.

Sometimes, I think, beneath my feet,

The warm earth stretches herself and sighs. . . .

Listen! I heard the slow heart beat. . . .

I will lie on this grass as a lover lies

And reach to the north and reach to the south

And seek in the darkness for her mouth.

* * * * *

Beloved, beloved, where the slow waves of the wind

Shatter pale foam among great trees,

Under the hurrying stars, under the heaving arches,

Like one whirled down under shadowy seas,

I run to find you, I run and cry,

Where are you? Where are you? It is I. It is I.

It is your eyes I seek, it is your windy hair,

Your starlight body that breathes in the darkness there.

Under the darkness I feel you stirring. . . .

Is this you? Is this you?

Bats in this air go whirring. . . .

And this soft mouth that darkly meets my mouth,

Is this the soft mouth I knew?

Darkness, and wind in the tortured trees;

And the patter of dew.

* * * * *

Dance! Dance! Dance! Dance!

Dance till the brain is red with speed!

Dance till you fall! Lift your torches!

Kiss your lovers until they bleed!

Backward I draw your anguished hair

Until your eyes are stretched with pain;

Backward I press you until you cry,

Your lips grow white, I kiss you again,

I will take a torch and set you afire,

I will break your body and fling it away. . . .

Look, you are trembling. . . .Lie still, beloved!

Lock your hands in my hair, and say

Darling! darling! darling! darling!

All night long till the break of day.

Is it your heart I hear beneath me. . . .

Or the far tolling of that tower?

The voices are still that cried around us. . . .

The woods grow still for the sacred hour.

Rise, white lover! the day draws near.

The grey trees lean to the east in fear.

'By the clear waters where once I died . . . .'

Beloved, whose voice was this that cried?

'By the clear waters that reach the sun

By the clear waves that starward run. . . .

I found love's body and lost his soul,

And crumbled in flame that should have annealed. . .

How shall I ever again be whole,

By what dark waters shall I be healed?'

Silence. . . .the red leaves, one by one,

Fall. Far off, the maenads run.

Silence. Beneath my naked feet

The veins of the red earth swell and beat.

The dead leaves sigh on the troubled air,

Far off the maenads bind their hair. . . .

Hurry, beloved! the day comes soon.

The fire is drawn from the heart of the moon.

* * * * *

The great bell cracks and falls at last.

The moon whirls out. The sky grows still.

Look, how the white cloud crosses the stars

And suddenly drops behind the hill!

Your eyes are placid, you smile at me,

We sit in the room by candle-light.

We peer in each other's veins and see

No sign of the things we saw this night.

Only, a song is in your ears,

A song you have heard, you think, in dream:

The song which only the demon hears,

In the dark forest where maenads scream . . .

'By the clear waters where once I died . . .

In the calm evening bright with stars . . . '

What do the strange words mean? you say,

And touch my hand, and turn away.

XIII.

The half-shut doors through which we heard that music

Are softly closed. Horns mutter down to silence.

The stars whirl out, the night grows deep.

Darkness settles upon us. A vague refrain

Drowsily teases at the drowsy brain.

In numberless rooms we stretch ourselves and sleep.

Where have we been? What savage chaos of music

Whirls in our dreams? We suddenly rise in darkness,

Open our eyes, cry out, and sleep once more.

We dream we are numberless sea-waves languidly foaming

A warm white moonlit shore;

Or clouds blown windily over a sky at midnight,

Or chords of music scattered in hurrying darkness,

Or a singing sound of rain . . .

We open our eyes and stare at the coiling darkness,

And enter our dreams again.