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The Project Gutenberg EBook of The House of Dust, by Conrad Aiken This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The House of Dust A Symphony Author: Conrad Aiken Posting Date: August 21, 2008 [EBook #1246] Release Date: March, 1998 Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOUSE OF DUST *** Produced by Judy Boss THE HOUSE OF DUST A Symphony By Conrad Aiken To Jessie NOTE . . . Parts of this poem have been printed in "The North American Review, Others, Poetry, Youth, Coterie, The Yale Review". . . . I am indebted to Lafcadio Hearn for the episode called "The Screen Maiden" in Part II. THE HOUSE OF DUST PART I. I. 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 one. A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night. Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun. And the wandering one, the inquisitive dreamer of dreams, The eternal asker of answers, stands in the street, And lifts his palms for the first cold ghost of rain. The purple lights leap down the hill before him. The gorgeous night has begun again. 'I will ask them all, I will ask them all their dreams, I will hold my light above them and seek their faces. I will hear them whisper, invisible in their veins . . .' The eternal asker of answers becomes as the darkness, Or as a wind blown over a myriad forest, Or as the numberless voices of long-drawn rains. We hear him and take him among us, like a wind of music, Like the ghost of a music we have somewhere heard; We crowd through the streets in a dazzle of pallid lamplight, We pour in a sinister wave, ascend a stair, With laughter and cry, and word upon murmured word; We flow, we descend, we turn . . . and the eternal dreamer Moves among us like light, like evening air . . . Good-night! Good-night! Good-night! We go our ways, The rain runs over the pavement before our feet, The cold ra
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