Conrad Aiken

Through that window, all else being extinct
Except itself and me, I saw the struggle
Of darkness against darkness. Within the room
It turned and turned, dived downward. Then I saw
How order might, if chaos wished, become:
And saw the darkness crush upon itself,
Contracting powerfully; it was as if
It killed itself, slowly: and with much pain.
Pain. The scene was pain, and nothing but pain.
What else, when chaos draws all forces inward
To shape a single leaf? . . .

For the leaf came
Alone and shining in the empty room;
After a while the twig shot downward from it;
And from the twig a bough; and then the trunk,
Massive and coarse; and last the one black root.
The black root cracked the walls. Boughs burst the window:
The great tree took possession.

She looks out in the blue morning
and sees a whole wonderful world
she looks out in the morning
and sees a whole world

She leans out of the window
and this is what she sees
a wet rose singing to the sun
with a chorus of red bees

She leans out of the window
and laughs for the window is high
she is in it like a bird on a perch
and they scoop the blue sky

She and the window scooping
the morning as if it were air
scooping a green wave of leaves
above a stone stair

And an urn hung with leaden garlands
and girls holding hands in a ring
and raindrops on an iron railing
shining like a harp string

An old man draws with his ferrule
in wet sand a map of Spain
the marble soldier on his pedestal
draws a stiff...

He thinks her little feet should pass
Where dandelions star thickly grass;
Her hands should lift in sunlit air
Sea-wind should tangle up her hair.
Green leaves, he says, have never heard
A sweeter ragtime mockingbird,
Nor has the moon-man ever seen,
Or man in the spotlight, leering green,
Such a beguiling, smiling queen.
Her eyes, he says, are stars at dusk,
Her mouth as sweet as red-rose musk;
And when she dances his young heart swells
With flutes and viols and silver bells;
His brain is dizzy, his senses swim,
When she slants her ragtime eyes at him. . .
Moonlight shadows, he bids her see,
Move no more silently than she.
It was this way, he says, she came,
Into his cold heart, bearing flame.
And now that his heart is all on fire
Will she ...

Here on the pale beach, in the darkness;
With the full moon just to rise;
They sit alone, and look over the sea,
Or into each other’s eyes. . .
She pokes her parasol into the sleepy sand,
Or sifts the lazy whiteness through her hand.
‘A lovely night,’ he says, ‘the moon,
Comes up for you and me.
Just like a blind old spotlight there,
Fizzing across the sea!’
She pays no heed, nor even turns her head:
He slides his arm around her waist instead.
‘Why don’t we do a sketch together,
Those songs you sing are swell.
Where did you get them, anyway?
They suit you awfully well.’
She will not turn to him, will not resist.
Impassive, she submits to being kissed.
‘My husband wrote all four of them.
You know, my husband drowned.
He was always sickly, so...