The House Of Dust: Part 03: 10: Letter Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCD CCEFCGCC HCCIJKLMN COMPQRRLKSKCS CBTUVWXYZCA2MB2 CDJCC2D2CMM CLE2MCGCIIF2PG2UMG2C H2I2MDJ2K2L2M2N2 O2OCE2CP2ACCQ2CR2IIR DDL L2S2DDG2T2CU2V2DMW2F X2DR CG2DCDY2PCKCHK2CMCLA 2Z2 A3LCCDB3RPS2S2DMDDCP DFrom 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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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
(1)
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