Section: «Poems»
Verse (ancient Greek ὁ στίχος — row, structure), a term in versification used in several meanings:
artistic speech organized by division into rhythmically commensurate segments; poetry in the narrow sense; in particular, it implies the properties of versification of a particular tradition ("antique verse", "Akhmatova's verse", etc.);
a line of poetic text organized according to a certain rhythmic pattern ("My uncle of the most honest rules").
Youth Imperturbable
Let me not shrink at sight of death,Nor waste in grief an idle breath ...You whom I loved are one with clay,The brightness in your eyes is gone,I..
© Conrad Potter Aiken
Twilights, V
Now the great wheel of darkness and low cloudsWhirs and whirls in the heavens with dipping rim;Against the ice-white wall of light in the..
© Conrad Potter Aiken
White Nocturne
The first soft snowflakes hovering down the night,From one white cloud that hurries beneath the stars,-Whispering over the black unfrozen..
© Conrad Potter Aiken
Laughter
You, whom these eyes, no longer mine,Shall see in the mirror's flash and shine,Meagre of face and pale of cheek,Pale mouth, and lines that sadness..
© Conrad Potter Aiken
The Charnel Rose: A Symphony
She rose in moonlight, and stood, confronting sea,With her bare arms uplifted,And lifted her voice in the silence foolishly:And her face was small..
© Conrad Potter Aiken
Violet Moore And Bert Moore
He thinks her little feet should passWhere dandelions star thickly grass;Her hands should lift in sunlit airSea-wind should tangle up her hair.Green..
© Conrad Potter Aiken
The Cornet
When she came out, that white little Russian dancer,With her bright hair, and her eyes, so young, so young,He suddenly lost his leader, and all the..
© Conrad Potter Aiken
Prelude
As evening falls,And the yellow lights leap one by oneAlong high wallsAnd along black streets that glisten as if with rain,The muted city seemsLike..
© Conrad Potter Aiken
Improvisations: Light And Snow: 05
When I was a boy, and saw bright rows of iciclesIn many lengths along a wallI was dissappointed to findThat I could not play music upon them:I ran my..
© Conrad Potter Aiken
The Things
The house in Broad Street, red brick, with nine roomsthe weedgrown graveyard with its rows of tombsthe jail from which imprisoned faces grinnedat..
© Conrad Potter Aiken
Over The Darkened City
Over the darkened city, the city of towers,The city of a thousand gates,Over the gleaming terraced roofs, the huddled towers,Over a somnolent whisper..
© Conrad Potter Aiken
Improvisations: Light And Snow: 06
It is now two hours since I left you,And the perfume of your hands is still on my hands.And though since thenI have looked at the stars, walked in..
© Conrad Potter Aiken
Improvisations: Light And Snow: 13
My heart is an old house, and in that forlorn old house,In the very centre, dark and forgotten,Is a locked room where an enchanted princessLies..
© Conrad Potter Aiken
The Vampire
She rose among us where we lay.She wept, we put our work away.She chilled our laughter, stilled our play;And spread a silence there.And darkness shot..
© Conrad Potter Aiken
Improvisations: Light And Snow: 07
The day opens with the brown light of snowfallAnd past the window snowflakes fall and fall.I sit in my chair all day and work and workMeasuring words..
© Conrad Potter Aiken
Our Secret Selves
The snow floats down upon us, mingled with rain . . .It eddies around pale lilac lamps, and fallsDown golden-windowed walls.We were all born of..
© Conrad Potter Aiken
The House Of Dust: Part 04: 04: Counterpoint: Two Rooms
He, in the room above, grown old and tired,She, in the room below—his floor her ceiling—Pursue their separate dreams. He turns his light,And throws..
© Conrad Potter Aiken
One
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..
© Conrad Potter Aiken
Knock On The Door
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..
© Conrad Potter Aiken
The House Of Dust: Part 04: 07: The Sun Goes Down In A Cold Pale Flare Of Light
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..
© Conrad Potter Aiken
The House Of Dust: Part 04: 06: Cinema
As evening falls,The walls grow luminous and warm, the wallsTremble and glow with the lives within them moving,Moving like music, secret and rich and..
© Conrad Potter Aiken
Improvisations: Light And Snow: 08
Many things perplex me and leave me troubled,Many things are locked away in the white book of starsNever to be opened by me.The starr’d leaves are..
© Conrad Potter Aiken
Improvisations: Light And Snow: 11
As I walked through the lamplit gardens,On the thin white crust of snow,So intensely was I thinking of my misfortune,So clearly were my eyes fixedOn..
© Conrad Potter Aiken
Improvisations: Light And Snow: 10
It is night time, and cold, and snow is falling,And no wind grieves the walls.In the small world of light around the arc-lampA swarm of snowflakes..
© Conrad Potter Aiken
Improvisations: Light And Snow: 05
When I was a boy, and saw bright rows of iciclesIn many lengths along a wallI was dissappointed to findThat I could not play music upon them:I ran my..
© Conrad Potter Aiken