from Senlin: A Biography <br /> <br /> <br />It is moonlight. Alone in the silence <br />I ascend my stairs once more, <br />While waves, remote in a pale blue starlight, <br />Crash on a white sand shore. <br />It is moonlight. The garden is silent. <br />I stand in my room alone. <br />Across my wall, from the far-off moon, <br />A rain of fire is thrown . . . <br />There are houses hanging above the stars, <br />And stars hung under a sea: <br />And a wind from the long blue vault of time <br />Waves my curtain for me . . . <br />I wait in the dark once more, <br />Swung between space and space: <br />Before my mirror I lift my hands <br />And face my remembered face. <br />Is it I who stand in a question here, <br />Asking to know my name? . . . <br />It is I, yet I know not whither I go, <br />Nor why, nor whence I came. <br />It is I, who awoke at dawn <br />And arose and descended the stair, <br />Conceiving a god in the eye of the sun,— <br />In a woman's hands and hair. <br />It is I whose flesh is gray with the stones <br />I builded into a wall: <br />With a mournful melody in my brain <br />Of a tune I cannot recall . . . <br />There are roses to kiss: and mouths to kiss; <br />And the sharp-pained shadow of death. <br />I remember a rain-drop on my cheek,— <br />A wind like a fragrant breath . . . <br />And the star I laugh on tilts through heaven; <br />And the heavens are dark and steep . . . <br />I will forget these things once more <br />In the silence of sleep.<br /><br />Conrad Potter Aiken<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/evening-song-of-senlin/
