The House of Dust; a symphony Part 1

The House of Dust.

by Conrad Aiken.

PART I.

I.

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, And lifts his palms for the first cold ghost of rain.

The purple lights leap down the hill before him.

The gorgeous night has begun again.

'I will ask them all, I will ask them all their dreams, I will hold my light above them and seek their faces.

I will hear them whisper, invisible in their veins . . .'

The eternal asker of answers becomes as the darkness, Or as a wind blown over a myriad forest, Or as the numberless voices of long-drawn rains.

We hear him and take him among us, like a wind of music, Like the ghost of a music we have somewhere heard; We crowd through the streets in a dazzle of pallid lamplight, We pour in a sinister wave, ascend a stair, With laughter and cry, and word upon murmured word; We flow, we descend, we turn . . . and the eternal dreamer Moves among us like light, like evening air . . .

Good-night! Good-night! Good-night! We go our ways, The rain runs over the pavement before our feet, The cold rain falls, the rain sings.

We walk, we run, we ride. We turn our faces To what the eternal evening brings.

Our hands are hot and raw with the stones we have laid, We have built a tower of stone high into the sky, We have built a city of towers.

Our hands are light, they are singing with emptiness.

Our souls are light; they have shaken a burden of hours . . .

What did we build it for? Was it all a dream? . . .

Ghostly above us in lamplight the towers gleam . . .

And after a while they will fall to dust and rain; Or else we will tear them down with impatient hands; And hew rock out of the earth, and build them again.

II.

One, from his high bright window in a tower, Leans out, as evening falls, And sees the advancing curtain of the shower Splashing its silver on roofs and walls: Sees how, swift as a shadow, it crosses the city, And murmurs beyond far walls to the sea, Leaving a glimmer of water in the dark canyons, And silver falling from eave and tree.

One, from his high bright window, looking down, Peers like a dreamer over the rain-bright town, And thinks its towers are like a dream.

The western windows flame in the sun's last flare, Pale roofs begin to gleam.

Looking down from a window high in a wall He sees us all; Lifting our pallid faces towards the rain, Searching the sky, and going our ways again, Standing in doorways, waiting under the trees . . .

There, in the high bright window he dreams, and sees What we are blind to,--we who ma.s.s and crowd From wall to wall in the darkening of a cloud.

The gulls drift slowly above the city of towers, Over the roofs to the darkening sea they fly; Night falls swiftly on an evening of rain.

The yellow lamps wink one by one again.

The towers reach higher and blacker against the sky.

III.

One, where the pale sea foamed at the yellow sand, With wave upon slowly shattering wave, Turned to the city of towers as evening fell; And slowly walked by the darkening road toward it; And saw how the towers darkened against the sky; And across the distance heard the toll of a bell.

Along the darkening road he hurried alone, With his eyes cast down, And thought how the streets were hoa.r.s.e with a tide of people, With clamor of voices, and numberless faces . . .

And it seemed to him, of a sudden, that he would drown Here in the quiet of evening air, These empty and voiceless places . . .

And he hurried towards the city, to enter there.

Along the darkening road, between tall trees That made a sinister whisper, loudly he walked.

Behind him, sea-gulls dipped over long grey seas.

Before him, numberless lovers smiled and talked.

And death was observed with sudden cries, And birth with laughter and pain.

And the trees grew taller and blacker against the skies And night came down again.

IV.

Up high black walls, up sombre terraces, Clinging like luminous birds to the sides of cliffs, The yellow lights went climbing towards the sky.

From high black walls, gleaming vaguely with rain, Each yellow light looked down like a golden eye.

They trembled from coign to coign, and tower to tower, Along high terraces quicker than dream they flew.

And some of them steadily glowed, and some soon vanished, And some strange shadows threw.

And behind them all the ghosts of thoughts went moving, Restlessly moving in each lamplit room, From chair to mirror, from mirror to fire; From some, the light was scarcely more than a gloom: From some, a dazzling desire.

And there was one, beneath black eaves, who thought, Combing with lifted arms her golden hair, Of the lover who hurried towards her through the night; And there was one who dreamed of a sudden death As she blew out her light.

And there was one who turned from clamoring streets, And walked in lamplit gardens among black trees, And looked at the windy sky, And thought with terror how stones and roots would freeze And birds in the dead boughs cry . . .

And she hurried back, as snow fell, mixed with rain, To mingle among the crowds again, To jostle beneath blue lamps along the street; And lost herself in the warm bright coiling dream, With a sound of murmuring voices and shuffling feet.

And one, from his high bright window looking down On luminous chasms that cleft the basalt town, Hearing a sea-like murmur rise, Desired to leave his dream, descend from the tower, And drown in waves of shouts and laughter and cries.

V.

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.