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II. HIS FUTILE PREOCCUPATIONS
- 1
- I am a house, says Senlin, locked and darkened,
- Sealed from the sun with wall and door and blind.
- Summon me loudly, and you'll hear slow footsteps
- Ring far and faint in the galleries of my mind.
- You'll hear soft steps on an old and dusty stairway;
- Peer darkly through some corner of a pane,
- You'll see me with a faint light coming slowly,
- Pausing above some gallery of the brain . . .
- I am a city . . . In the blue light of evening
- Wind wanders among my streets and makes them fair;
- I am a room of rock . . . a maiden dances
- Lifting her hands, tossing her golden hair.
- She combs her hair, the room of rock is darkened,
- She extends herself in me, and I am sleep.
- It is my pride that starlight is above me;
- I dream amid waves of air, my walls are deep.
- I am a door . . . before me roils the darkness,
- Behind me ring clear waves of sound and light.
- Stand in the shadowy street outside, and listen--
- The crying of violins assails the night . . .
- My walls are deep, but the cries of music pierce them;
- They shake with the sound of drums . . . yet it is strange
- That I should know so little what means this music,
- Hearing it always within me change and change.
- Knock on the door,--and you shall have an answer.
- Open the heavy walls to set me free,
- And blow a horn to call me into the sunlight,--
- And startled, then, what a strange thing you will see!
- Nuns, murderers, and drunkards, saints and sinners,
- Lover and dancing girl and sage and clown
- Will laugh upon you, and you will find me nowhere.
- I am a room, a house, a street, a town.
- 2
- It is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning
- When the light drips through the shutters like the dew,
- I arise, I face the sunrise,
- And do the things my fathers learned to do.
- Stars in the purple dusk above the rooftops
- Pale in a saffron mist and seem to die,
- And I myself on a swiftly tilting planet
- Stand before a glass and tie my tie.
- Vine leaves tap my window,
- Dew-drops sing to the garden stones,
- The robin chips in the chinaberry tree
- Repeating three clear tones.
- It is morning. I stand by the mirror
- And tie my tie once more.
- While waves far off in a pale rose twilight
- Crash on a white sand shore.
- I stand by a mirror and comb my hair:
- How small and white my face!--
- The green earth tilts through a sphere of air
- And bathes in a flame of space.
- There are houses hanging above the stars
- And stars hung under a sea . . .
- And a sun far off in a shell of silence
- Dapples my walls for me . . .
- It is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning
- Should I not pause in the light to remember God?
- Upright and firm I stand on a star unstable,
- He is immense and lonely as a cloud.
- I will dedicate this moment before my mirror
- To him alone, and for him I will comb my hair.
- Accept these humble offerings, cloud of silence!
- I will think of you as I descend the stair.
- Vine leaves tap my window,
- The snail-track shines on the stones,
- Dew-drops flash from the chinaberry tree
- Repeating two clear tones.
- It is morning, I awake from a bed of silence,
- Shining I rise from the starless waters of sleep.
- The walls are about me still as in the evening,
- I am the same, and the same name still I keep.
- The earth revolves with me, yet makes no motion,
- The stars pale silently in a coral sky.
- In a whistling void I stand before my mirror,
- Unconcerned, I tie my tie.
- There are horses neighing on far-off hills
- Tossing their long white manes,
- And mountains flash in the rose-white dusk,
- Their shoulders black with rains . . .
- It is morning. I stand by the mirror
- And surprise my soul once more;
- The blue air rushes above my ceiling,
- There are suns beneath my floor . . .
- . . . It is morning, Senlin says, I ascend from darkness
- And depart on the winds of space for I know not where,
- My watch is wound, a key is in my pocket,
- And the sky is darkened as I descend the stair.
- There are shadows across the windows, clouds in heaven,
- And a god among the stars; and I will go
- Thinking of him as I might think of daybreak
- And humming a tune I know . . .
- Vine-leaves tap at the window,
- Dew-drops sing to the garden stones,
- The robin chirps in the chinaberry tree
- Repeating three clear tones.
- 3
- I walk to my work, says Senlin, along a street
- Superbly hung in space.
- I lift these mortal stones, and with my trowel
- I tap them into place.
- But is god, perhaps, a giant who ties his tie
- Grimacing before a colossal glass of sky?
- These stones are heavy, these stones decay,
- These stones are wet with rain,
- I build them into a wall today,
- Tomorrow they fall again.
- Does god arise from a chaos of starless sleep,
- Rise from the dark and stretch his arms and yawn;
- And drowsily look from the window at his garden;
- And rejoice at the dewdrop sparkeling on his lawn?
- Does he remember, suddenly, with amazement,
- The yesterday he left in sleep,--his name,--
- Or the glittering street superbly hung in wind
- Along which, in the dusk, he slowly came?
- I devise new patterns for laying stones
- And build a stronger wall.
- One drop of rain astonishes me
- And I let my trowel fall.
- The flashing of leaves delights my eyes,
- Blue air delights my face;
- I will dedicate this stone to god
- And tap it into its place.
- 4
- That woman--did she try to attract my attention?
- Is it true I saw her smile and nod?
- She turned her head and smiled . . . was it for me?
- It is better to think of work or god.
- The clouds pile coldly above the houses
- Slow wind revolves the leaves:
- It begins to rain, and the first long drops
- Are slantingly blown from eaves.
- But it is true she tried to attract my attention!
- She pressed a rose to her chin and smiled.
- Her hand was white by the richness of her hair,
- Her eyes were those of a child.
- It is true she looked at me as if she liked me.
- And turned away, afraid to look too long!
- She watched me out of the corners of her eyes;
- And, tapping time with fingers, hummed a song.
- . . . Nevertheless, I will think of work,
- With a trowel in my hands;
- Or the vague god who blows like clouds
- Above these dripping lands . . .
- But . . . is it sure she tried to attract my attention?
- She leaned her elbow in a peculiar way
- There in the crowded room . . . she touched my hand . . .
- She must have known, and yet,--she let it stay.
- Music of flesh! Music of root and sod!
- Leaf touching leaf in the rain!
- Impalpable clouds of red ascend,
- Red clouds blow over my brain.
- Did she await from me some sign of acceptance?
- I smoothed my hair with a faltering hand.
- I started a feeble smile, but the smile was frozen:
- Perhaps, I thought, I misunderstood.
- Is it to be conceived that I could attract her--
- This dull and futile flesh attract such fire?
- I,--with a trowel's dullness in hand and brain!--
- Take on some godlike aspect, rouse desire?
- Incredible! . . . delicious! . . . I will wear
- A brighter color of tie, arranged with care,
- I will delight in god as I comb my hair.
- And the conquests of my bolder past return
- Like strains of music, some lost tune
- Recalled from youth and a happier time.
- I take my sweetheart's arm in the dusk once more;
- One more we climb
- Up the forbidden stairway,
- Under the flickering light, along the railing:
- I catch her hand in the dark, we laugh once more,
- I hear the rustle of silk, and follow swiftly,
- And softly at last we close the door.
- Yes, it is true that woman tried to attract me:
- It is true she came out of time for me,
- Came from the swirling and savage forest of earth,
- The cruel eternity of the sea.
- She parted the leaves of waves and rose from silence
- Shining with secrets she did not know.
- Music of dust! Music of web and web!
- And I, bewildered, let her go.
- I light my pipe. The flame is yellow,
- Edged underneath with blue.
- These thoughts are truer of god, perhaps,
- Than thoughts of god are true.
- 5
- It is noontime, Senlin says, and a street piano
- Strikes sharply against the sunshine a harsh chord,
- And the universe is suddenly agitated,
- And pain to my heart goes glittering like a sword.
- Do I imagine it? The dust is shaken,
- The sunlight quivers, the brittle oak-leaves tremble.
- The world, disturbed, conceals its agitation;
- And I, too, will dissemble.
- Yet it is sorrow has found my heart,
- Sorrow for beauty, sorrow for death;
- And pain twirls slowly among the trees.
- The street-piano revolves its glittering music,
- The sharp notes flash and dazzle and turn,
- Memory's knives are in this sunlit silence,
- They ripple and lazily burn.
- The star on which my shadow falls is frightened,--
- It does not move; my trowel taps a stone,
- The sweet note wavers amid derisive music;
- And I, in horror of sunlight, stand alone.
- Do not recall my weakness, savage music!
- Let the knives rest!
- Impersonal, harsh, the music revolves and glitters,
- And the notes like poniards pierce my breast.
- And I remember the shadows of webs on stones,
- And the sound or rain on withered grass,
- And a sorrowful face that looked without illusions
- At its image in the glass.
- Do not recall my childhood, pitiless music!
- The green blades flicker and gleam,
- The red bee bends the clover, deeply humming;
- In the blue sea above me lazily stream
- Cloud upon thin-brown cloud, revolving, scattering;
- The mulberry tree rakes heaven and drops its fruit;
- Amazing sunlight sings in the opened vault
- On dust and bones, and I am mute.
- It is noon; the bells let fall soft flowers of sound.
- They turn on the air, they shrink in the flare of noon.
- It is night; and I lie alone, and watch through the window
- The terrible ice-white emptiness of the moon.
- Small bells, far off, spill jewels of sound like rain,
- A long wind hurries them whirled and far,
- A cloud creeps over the moon, my bed is darkened,
- I hold my breath and watch a star.
- Do not disturb my memories, heartless music!
- I stand once more by a vine-dark moonlit wall,
- The sound of my footsteps dies in a void of moonlight,
- And I watch white jasmine fall.
- Is it my heart that falls? Does earth itself
- Drift, a white petal, down the sky?
- One bell-note goes to the stars in the blue-white silence,
- Solitary and mournful, a somnolent cry.
- 6
- Death himself in the rain . . . death himself . . .
- Death in the savage sunlight . . . skeletal death . . .
- I hear the clack of his feet,
- Clearly on stones, softly in dust;
- He hurries among the trees
- Whirling the leaves, tossing he hands from waves.
- Listen! the immortal footsteps beat.
- Death himself in the grass, death himself,
- Gyrating invisibly in the sun,
- Scatters the grass-blades, whips the wind,
- Tears at boughs with malignant laughter:
- On the long echoing air I hear him run.
- Death himself in the dusk, gathering lilacs,
- Breaking a white-fleshed bough,
- Strewing purple on a cobwebbed lawn,
- Dancing, dancing,
- The long red sun-rays glancing
- On flailing arms, skipping with hideous knees
- Cavorting grotesque ecstasies:
- I do not see him, but I see the lilacs fall,
- I hear the scrape of knuckles against the wall,
- The leaves are tossed and tremble where he plunges among them,
- And I hear the sound of his breath,
- Sharp and whistling, the rhythm of death.
- It is evening: the lights on a long street balance and sway.
- In the purple ether they swing and silently sing,
- The street is a gossamer swung in space,
- And death himself in the wind comes dancing along it,
- And the lights, like raindrops, tremble and swing.
- Hurry, spider, and spread your glistening web,
- For death approaches!
- Hurry, rose, and open your heart to the bee,
- For death approaches!
- Maiden, let down your hair for the hands of your lover,
- Comb it with moonlight and wreathe it with leaves,
- For death approaches!
- Death, huge in the star; small in the sand-grain;
- Death himself in the rain,
- Drawing the rain about him like a garment of jewels:
- I hear the sound of his feet
- On the stairs of the wind, in the sun,
- In the forests of the sea . . .
- Listen! the immortal footsteps beat!
- 7
- It is noontime, Senlin says. The sky is brilliant
- Above a green and dreaming hill.
- I lay my trowel down. The pool is cloudless,
- The grass, the wall, the peach-tree, all are still.
- It appears to me that I am one with these:
- A hill, upon whose back are a wall and trees.
- It is noontime: all seems still
- Upon this green and flowering hill.
- Yet suddenly out of nowhere in the sky,
- A cloud comes whirling, and flings
- A lazily coiled vortex of shade on the hill.
- It crosses the hill, and a bird in the peach-tree sings.
- Amazing! Is there a change?
- The hill seems somehow strange.
- It is noontime. And in the tree
- The leaves are delicately disturbed
- Where the bird descends invisibly.
- It is noontime. And in the pool
- The sky is blue and cool.
- Yet suddenly out of nowhere,
- Something flings itself at the hill,
- Tears with claws at the earth,
- Lunges and hisses and softly recoils,
- Crashing against the green.
- The peach-tree braces itself, the pool is frightened,
- The grass-blades quiver, the bird is still;
- The wall silently struggles against the sunlight;
- A terror stiffens the hill.
- The trees turn rigidly, to face
- Something that circles with slow pace:
- The blue pool seems to shrink
- From something that slides above its brink.
- What struggle is this, ferocious and still--
- What war in sunlight on this hill?
- What is it creeping to dart
- Like a knife-blade at my heart?
- It is noontime, Senlin says, and all is tranquil:
- The brilliant sky burns over a greenbright earth.
- The peach-tree dreams in the sun, the wall is contented.
- A bird in the peach-leaves, moving from sun to shadow,
- Phrases again his unremembering mirth,
- His lazily beautiful, foolish, mechanical mirth.
- 8
- The pale blue gloom of evening comes
- Among the phantom forests and walls
- With a mournful and rhythmic sound of drums.
- My heart is disturbed with a sound of myriad throbbing,
- Persuasive and sinister, near and far:
- In the blue evening of my heart
- I hear the thrum of the evening star.
- My work is uncompleted; and yet I hurry,--
- Hearing the whispered pulsing of those drums,--
- To enter the luminous walls and woods of night.
- It is the eternal mistress of the world
- Who shakes these drums for my delight.
- Listen! the drums of the leaves, the drums of the dust,
- The delicious quivering of this air!
- I will leave my work unfinished, and I will go
- With ringing and certain step through the laughter of chaos
- To the one small room in the void I know.
- Yesterday it was there,--
- Will I find it tonight once more when I climb the stair?
- The drums of the street beat swift and soft:
- In the blue evening of my heart
- I hear the throb of the bridal star.
- It weaves deliciously in my brain
- A tyrannous melody of her:
- Hands in sunlight, threads of rain
- Against a weeping face that fades,
- Snow on a blackened window-pane;
- Fire, in a dusk of hair entangled;
- Flesh, more delicate than fruit;
- And a voice that searches quivering nerves
- For a string to mute.
- My life is uncompleted: and yet I hurry
- Among the tinkling forests and walls of evening
- To a certain fragrant room.
- Who is it that dances there, to a beating of drums,
- While stars on a grey sea bud and bloom?
- She stands at the top of the stair,
- With the lamplight on her hair.
- I will walk through the snarling of streams of space
- And climb the long steps carved from wind
- And rise once more towards her face.
- Listen! the drums of the drowsy trees
- Beating our nuptial ecstasies!
- Music spins from the heart of silence
- And twirls me softly upon the air:
- It takes my hand and whispers to me:
- It draws the web of the moonlight down.
- There are hands, it says, as cool as snow,
- The hands of the Venus of the sea;
- There are waves of sound in a mermaid-cave;--
- Come--then--come with me!
- The flesh of the sea-rose new and cool,
- The wavering image of her who comes
- At dusk by a blue sea-pool.
- Whispers upon the haunted air--
- Whisper of foam-white arm and thigh;
- And a shower of delicate lights blown down
- Fro the laughing sky! . . .
- Music spins from a far-off room.
- Do you remember,--it seems to say,--
- The mouth that smiled, beneath your mouth,
- And kissed you . . . yesterday?
- It is your own flesh waits for you.
- Come! you are incomplete! . . .
- The drums of the universe once more
- Morosely beat.
- It is the harlot of the world
- Who clashes the leaves like ghostly drums
- And disturbs the solitude of my heart
- As evening comes!
- I leave my work once more and walk
- Along a street that sways in the wind.
- I leave these stones, and walk once more
- Along infinity's shore.
- I climb the golden-laddered stair;
- Among the stars in the void I climb:
- I ascend the golden-laddered hair
- Of the harlot-queen of time:
- She laughs from a window in the sky,
- Her white arms downward reach to me!
- We are the universe that spins
- In a dim ethereal sea.
- 9
- It is evening, Senlin says, and in the evening
- The throbbing of drums has languidly died away.
- Forest and sea are still. We breathe in silence
- And strive to say the things flesh cannot say.
- The soulless wind falls slowly about the earth
- And finds no rest.
- The lover stares at the setting star,--the wakeful lover
- Who finds no peace on his lover's breast.
- The snare of desire that bound us in is broken;
- Softly, in sorrow, we draw apart, and see,
- Far off, the beauty we thought our flesh had captured,--
- The star we longed to be but could not be.
- Come back! We will laugh once more at the words we said!
- We say them slowly again, but the words are dead.
- Come back beloved! . . . The blue void falls between,
- We cry to each other: alone; unknown; unseen.
- We are the grains of sand that run and rustle
- In the dry wind,
- We are the grains of sand who thought ourselves
- Immortal.
- You touch my hand, time bears you away,--
- An alien star for whom I have no word.
- What are the meaningless things you say?
- I answer you, but am not heard.
- It is evening, Senlin says;
- And a dream in ruin falls.
- Once more we turn in pain, bewildered,
- Among our finite walls:
- The walls we built ourselves with patient hands;
- For the god who sealed a question in our flesh.
- 10
- 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 . . .
- There are houses hanging above the stars,
- And stars hung under a sea:
- And a wind from the long blue vault of time
- Waves my curtain for me . . .
- I wait in the dark once more,
- Swung between space and space:
- Before my mirror I lift my hands
- And face my remembered face.
- Is it I who stand in a question here,
- Asking to know my name? . . .
- It is I, yet I know not whither I go,
- Nor why, nor whence I came.
- It is I, who awoke at dawn
- And arose and descended the stair,
- Conceiving a god in the eye of the sun,--
- In a woman's hands and hair.
- It is I whose flesh is gray with the stones
- I builded into a wall:
- With a mournful melody in my brain
- Of a tune I cannot recall . . .
- There are roses to kiss: and mouths to kiss;
- And the sharp-pained shadow of death.
- I remember a rain-drop on my cheek,--
- A wind like a fragrant breath . . .
- And the star I laugh on tilts through heaven;
- And the heavens are dark and steep . . .
- I will forget these things once more
- In the silence of sleep.
- Conrad Aiken
On to Part III. His Cloudy Destiny
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