The House Of Dust: Complete Poem Rhyme Scheme

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Conrad Potter Aiken

The House Of Dust: Complete Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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I	A
	-
The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light	B
The trees grow dark the shadows lean to the east	C
And lights wink out through the windows one by one	D
A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night	B
Pale slate grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun	D
	-
And the wandering one the inquisitive dreamer of dreams	E
The eternal asker of answers stands in the street	F
And lifts his palms for the first cold ghost of rain	G
The purple lights leap down the hill before him	H
The gorgeous night has begun again	I
	-
'I will ask them all I will ask them all their dreams	E
I will hold my light above them and seek their faces	J
I will hear them whisper invisible in their veins '	-
The eternal asker of answers becomes as the darkness	K
Or as a wind blown over a myriad forest	L
Or as the numberless voices of long drawn rains	M
	-
We hear him and take him among us like a wind of music	N
Like the ghost of a music we have somewhere heard	O
We crowd through the streets in a dazzle of pallid lamplight	O
We pour in a sinister wave ascend a stair	P
With laughter and cry and word upon murmured word	O
We flow we descend we turn and the eternal dreamer	Q
Moves among us like light like evening air	P
	-
Good night Good night Good night We go our ways	R
The rain runs over the pavement before our feet	O
The cold rain falls the rain sings	S
We walk we run we ride We turn our faces	J
To what the eternal evening brings	S
	-
Our hands are hot and raw with the stones we have laid	O
We have built a tower of stone high into the sky	A
We have built a city of towers	T
	-
Our hands are light they are singing with emptiness	K
Our souls are light they have shaken a burden of hours	T
What did we build it for Was it all a dream	U
Ghostly above us in lamplight the towers gleam	U
And after a while they will fall to dust and rain	G
Or else we will tear them down with impatient hands	V
And hew rock out of the earth and build them again	I
	-
	-
II	A
	-
One from his high bright window in a tower	Q
Leans out as evening falls	W
And sees the advancing curtain of the shower	Q
Splashing its silver on roofs and walls	W
Sees how swift as a shadow it crosses the city	O
And murmurs beyond far walls to the sea	O
Leaving a glimmer of water in the dark canyons	X
And silver falling from eave and tree	O
	-
One from his high bright window looking down	Y
Peers like a dreamer over the rain bright town	Y
And thinks its towers are like a dream	U
The western windows flame in the sun's last flare	P
Pale roofs begin to gleam	U
	-
Looking down from a window high in a wall	Z
He sees us all	Z
Lifting our pallid faces towards the rain	G
Searching the sky and going our ways again	I
Standing in doorways waiting under the trees	A2
There in the high bright window he dreams and sees	A2
What we are blind to we who mass and crowd	O
From wall to wall in the darkening of a cloud	O
	-
The gulls drift slowly above the city of towers	T
Over the roofs to the darkening sea they fly	A
Night falls swiftly on an evening of rain	G
The yellow lamps wink one by one again	I
The towers reach higher and blacker against the sky	A
	-
	-
III	A
	-
One where the pale sea foamed at the yellow sand	O
With wave upon slowly shattering wave	B2
Turned to the city of towers as evening fell	C2
And slowly walked by the darkening road toward it	O
And saw how the towers darkened against the sky	A
And across the distance heard the toll of a bell	C2
	-
Along the darkening road he hurried alone	D2
With his eyes cast down	Y
And thought how the streets were hoarse with a tide of people	E2
With clamor of voices and numberless faces	J
And it seemed to him of a sudden that he would drown	Y
Here in the quiet of evening air	P
These empty and voiceless places	J
And he hurried towards the city to enter there	P
	-
Along the darkening road between tall trees	A2
That made a sinister whisper loudly he walked	O
Behind him sea gulls dipped over long grey seas	A2
Before him numberless lovers smiled and talked	O
And death was observed with sudden cries	F2
And birth with laughter and pain	G
And the trees grew taller and blacker against the skies	F2
And night came down again	I
	-
	-
IV	B2
	-
Up high black walls up sombre terraces	J
Clinging like luminous birds to the sides of cliffs	G2
The yellow lights went climbing towards the sky	A
From high black walls gleaming vaguely with rain	G
Each yellow light looked down like a golden eye	A
	-
They trembled from coign to coign and tower to tower	Q
Along high terraces quicker than dream they flew	H2
And some of them steadily glowed and some soon vanished	O
And some strange shadows threw	H2
	-
And behind them all the ghosts of thoughts went moving	I2
Restlessly moving in each lamplit room	J2
From chair to mirror from mirror to fire	Q
From some the light was scarcely more than a gloom	J2
From some a dazzling desire	Q
	-
And there was one beneath black eaves who thought	O
Combing with lifted arms her golden hair	P
Of the lover who hurried towards her through the night	O
And there was one who dreamed of a sudden death	K2
As she blew out her light	O
	-
And there was one who turned from clamoring streets	L2
And walked in lamplit gardens among black trees	A2
And looked at the windy sky	A
And thought with terror how stones and roots would freeze	A2
And birds in the dead boughs cry	A
	-
And she hurried back as snow fell mixed with rain	G
To mingle among the crowds again	I
To jostle beneath blue lamps along the street	O
And lost herself in the warm bright coiling dream	U
With a sound of murmuring voices and shuffling feet	O
	-
And one from his high bright window looking down	Y
On luminous chasms that cleft the basalt town	Y
Hearing a sea like murmur rise	F2
Desired to leave his dream descend from the tower	Q
And drown in waves of shouts and laughter and cries	F2
	-
	-
V	B2
	-
The snow floats down upon us mingled with rain	G
It eddies around pale lilac lamps and falls	W
Down golden windowed walls	W
We were all born of flesh in a flare of pain	G
We do not remember the red roots whence we rose	M2
But we know that we rose and walked that after a while	N2
We shall lie down again	I
	-
The snow floats down upon us we turn we turn	O2
Through gorges filled with light we sound and flow	P2
One is struck down and hurt we crowd about him	H
We bear him away gaze after his listless body	B2
But whether he lives or dies we do not know	P2
	-
One of us sings in the street and we listen to him	H
The words ring over us like vague bells of sorrow	P2
He sings of a house he lived in long ago	P2
It is strange this house of dust was the house I lived in	Q2
The house you lived in the house that all of us know	P2
And coiling slowly about him and laughing at him	H
And throwing him pennies we bear away	R2
A mournful echo of other times and places	J
And follow a dream a dream that will not stay	R2
	-
Down long broad flights of lamplit stairs we flow	P2
Noisy in scattered waves crowding and shouting	I2
In broken slow cascades	S2
The gardens extend before us We spread out swiftly	B2
Trees are above us and darkness The canyon fades	S2
	-
And we recall with a gleaming stab of sadness	K
Vaguely and incoherently some dream	U
Of a world we came from a world of sun blue hills	T2
A black wood whispers around us green eyes gleam	U
Someone cries in the forest and someone kills	T2
	-
We flow to the east to the white lined shivering sea	B2
We reach to the west where the whirling sun went down	Y
We close our eyes to music in bright cafees	B2
We diverge from clamorous streets to streets that are silent	O
We loaf where the wind spilled fountain plays	B2
	-
And growing tired we turn aside at last	O
Remember our secret selves seek out our towers	B2
Lay weary hands on the banisters and climb	U2
Climbing each to his little four square dream	U
Of love or lust or beauty or death or crime	U2
	-
	-
VI	A
	-
Over the darkened city the city of towers	B2
The city of a thousand gates	B2
Over the gleaming terraced roofs the huddl	B2