The House Of Dust: Part 03: 10: Letter Poem Rhyme Scheme

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From time to time lifting his eyes he sees	A
The soft blue starlight through the one small window	B
The moon above black trees and clouds and Venus mdash	C
And turns to write The clock behind ticks softly	D
	-
It is so long indeed since I have written mdash	C
Two years almost your last is turning yellow mdash	C
That these first words I write seem cold and strange	E
Are you the man I knew or have you altered	F
Altered of course mdash just as I too have altered mdash	C
And whether towards each other or more apart	G
We cannot say I've just re read your letter mdash	C
Not through forgetfulness but more for pleasure mdash	C
	-
Pondering much on all you say in it	H
Of mystic consciousness mdash divine conversion mdash	C
The sense of oneness with the infinite mdash	C
Faith in the world its beauty and its purpose	I
Well you believe one must have faith in some sort	J
If one's to talk through this dark world contented	K
But is the world so dark Or is it rather	L
Our own brute minds mdash in which we hurry trembling	M
Through streets as yet unlighted This I think	N
	-
You have been always let me say romantic mdash	C
Eager for color for beauty soon discontented	O
With a world of dust and stones and flesh too ailing	M
Even before the question grew to problem	P
And drove you bickering into metaphysics	Q
You met on lower planes the same great dragon	R
Seeking release some fleeting satisfaction	R
In strange aesthetics You tried as I remember	L
One after one strange cults and some too morbid	K
The cruder first more violent sensations	S
Gorgeously carnal things conceived and acted	K
With splendid animal thirst Then by degrees mdash	C
Savoring all more delicate gradations	S
	-
In all that hue and tone may play on flesh	C
Or thought on brain mdash you passed if I may say so	B
From red and scarlet through morbid greens to mauve	T
Let us regard ourselves you used to say	U
As instruments of music whereon our lives	V
Will play as we desire and let us yield	W
These subtle bodies and subtler brains and nerves	X
To all experience plays And so you went	Y
From subtle tune to subtler each heard once	Z
Twice or thrice at the most tiring of each	C
And closing one by one your doors drew in	A2
Slowly through darkening labyrinths of feeling	M
Towards the central chamber Which now you've reached	B2
	-
What then's the secret of this ultimate chamber mdash	C
Or innermost rather If I see it clearly	D
It is the last and cunningest resort	J
Of one who has found this world of dust and flesh mdash	C
This world of lamentations death injustice	C2
Sickness humiliation slow defeat	D2
Bareness and ugliness and iteration mdash	C
Too meaningless or if it has a meaning	M
Too tiresomely insistent on one meaning	M
	-
Futility This world I hear you saying mdash	C
With lifted chin and arm in outflung gesture	L
Coldly imperious mdash this transient world	E2
What has it then to give if not containing	M
Deep hints of nobler worlds We know its beauties mdash	C
Momentary and trivial for the most part	G
Perceived through flesh passing like flesh away mdash	C
And know how much outweighed they are by darkness	I
We are like searchers in a house of darkness	I
A house of dust we creep with little lanterns	F2
Throwing our tremulous arcs of light at random	P
Now here now there seeing a plane an angle	G2
An edge a curve a wall a broken stairway	U
Leading to who knows what but never seeing	M
The whole at once We grope our way a little	G2
And then grow tired No matter what we touch	C
Dust is the answer mdash dust dust everywhere	H2
If this were all mdash what were the use you ask	I2
But this is not for why should we be seeking	M
Why should we bring this need to seek for beauty	D
To lift our minds if there were only dust	J2
This is the central chamber you have come to	K2
Turning your back to the world until you came	L2
To this deep room and looked through rose stained windows	M2
And saw the hues of the world so sweetly changed	N2
	-
Well in a measure so only do we all	O2
I am not sure that you can be refuted	O
At the very last we all put faith in something mdash	C
You in this ghost that animates your world	E2
This ethical ghost mdash and I you'll say in reason mdash	C
Or sensuous beauty mdash or in my secret self	P2
Though as for that you put your faith in these	A
As much as I do mdash and then forsaking reason mdash	C
Ascending you would say to intuition mdash	C
You predicate this ghost of yours as well	Q2
Of course you might have argued mdash and you should have mdash	C
That no such deep appearance of design	R2
Could shape our world without entailing purpose	I
For can design exist without a purpose	I
Without conceiving mind We are like children	R
Who find upon the sands beside a sea	D
Strange patterns drawn mdash circles arcs ellipses	D
Moulded in sand Who put them there we wonder	L
	-
Did someone draw them here before we came	L2
Or was it just the sea mdash We pore upon them	S2
But find no answer mdash only suppositions	D
And if these perfect shapes are evidence	D
Of immanent mind it is but circumstantial	G2
We never come upon him at his work	T2
He never troubles us He stands aloof mdash	C
Well if he stands at all is not concerned	U2
With what we are or do You if you like	V2
May think he broods upon us loves us hates us	D
Conceives some purpose of us In so doing	M
You see without much reason will in law	W2
I am content to say 'this world is ordered	F
Happily so for us by accident	X2
We go our ways untroubled save by laws	D
Of natural things ' Who makes the more assumption	R
	-
If we were wise mdash which God knows we are not mdash	C
Notice I call on God we'd plumb this riddle	G2
Not in the world we see but in ourselves	D
These brains of ours mdash these delicate spinal clusters mdash	C
Have limits why not learn them learn their cravings	D
Which of the two minds yours or mine is sound	Y2
Yours which scorned the world that gave it freedom	P
Until you managed to see that world as omen mdash	C
Or mine which likes the world takes all for granted	K
Sorrow as much as joy and death as life mdash	C
You lean on dreams and take more credit for it	H
I stand alone Well I take credit too	K2
You find your pleasure in being at one with all things mdash	C
Fusing in lambent dream rising and falling	M
As all things rise and fall I do that too mdash	C
With reservations I find more varied pleasure	L
In understanding and so find beauty even	A2
In this strange dream of yours you call the truth	Z2
	-
Well I have bored you And it's growing late	A3
For household news mdash what have you heard I wonder	L
You must have heard that Paul was dead by this time mdash	C
Of spinal cancer Nothing could be done mdash	C
We found it out too late His death has changed me	D
Deflected much of me that lived as he lived	B3
Saddened me slowed me down Such things will happen	R
Life is composed of them and it seems wisdom	P
To see them clearly meditate upon them	S2
And understand what things flow out of them	S2
Otherwise all goes on here much as always	D
Why won't you come and see us in the spring	M
And bring old times with you mdash If you could see me	D
Sitting here by the window watching Venus	D
Go down behind my neighbor's poplar branches mdash	C
Just where you used to sit mdash I'm sure you'd come	P
This year they say the springtime will be early	D

Conrad Potter Aiken

The House Of Dust: Part 03: 10: Letter Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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