"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."
Conrad Potter Aiken was an American writer and poet, honored with a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award, and was United States Poet Laureate from 1950 to 1952. His published works include poetry, short stories, novels, literary criticism, a play, and an autobiography.
"I walk in a cloud of wonder; I am glad. I mingle among the crowds; my heart is pounding; You do not guess the adventure I have had! . . . Yet you, too, all have had your dark adventures, Your sudden adventures, or strange, or sweet . . . My peril goes out from me, is blown among you. We loiter, dreaming together, along the street."
Conrad Aiken"We flow, we descend, we turn . . . and the eternal dreamer Moves among us like light, like evening air . . ."
Conrad Aiken"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—"
Conrad Aiken"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."
Conrad Aiken"Through soundless labyrinths of dream you pass, Through many doors to the one door of all. Soon as its opened we shall hear a music: Or see a skeleton fall . . ."
Conrad Aiken"I am the one who stood beside you and smiled, Thinking your face so strangely young . . . I am the one who loved you but did not dare."
Conrad Aiken