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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Charnel Rose: A Symphony</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">She rose in moonlight, and stood, confronting sea, <br>With her bare arms uplifted, <br>And lifted her voice in the silence foolishly: <br>And her face was small, and her voice was small. <br>'O moon!' she cried, 'I think how you must tire <br>Forever circling earth, so silently; <br>Earth, who is dark and makes you no reply.' <br>She only heard the little waves rush and fall; <br>And saw the moon go quietly down the sky.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Like a white figurehead in the seafaring wind, <br>She stood in the moonlight, <br>And heard her voice cry, ghostly and thinned, <br>Over the seethe of foam, <br>Saying, 'O numberless waters, I think it strange <br>How you can always shadow her face, and change <br>And yet never weary of her, having no ease.' <br>But the sea said nothing, no word at all: <br>Unquietly, as in sleep, she saw it rise and fall; <br>And the moon spread a net of silver over the foam.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">She lifted her hands and let them fall again, <br>Impatient of the silence. And in despair, <br>Hopeless of final answer against her pain, <br>She said, to the stealthy air, <br>'O air, far traveller, who from the stars are blown, <br>Float pollen of suns, you are an unseen sea <br>Lifting and bearing the words, eternally. <br>O air, do you not weary of your task?' <br>- She stood in the silence, frightened and alone, <br>And heard her syllables ask and ask.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And then, as she walked in the moonlight, so alone, <br>Lost and small in a soulless sea, <br>Hearing no voice make answer to her own, <br>From that infinity, - <br>Suddenly she was aware of a low whisper, <br>A dreadful heartless sound; and she stood still, - <br>There in the beach grass, on a sandy hill, - <br>And heard the stars, making a ghostly whisper; <br>And the soulless whisper of sun and moon and tree; <br>And the sea, rising and falling with a blind moan.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And as she faded into the night, <br>A glimmer of white, <br>With her arms uplifted and her face bowed down; <br>Sinking, again, into the sleep of sands, <br>The sea-sands white and brown; <br>Or among the sea-grass rustling as one more blade, <br>Pushing before her face her cinquefoil hands; <br>Or sliding, stealthy as foam, into the sea, <br>With a slow seethe and whisper:</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Too late to find her, yet not too late to see, <br>Came he, who sought forever unsatisfied, <br>And saw her enter and shut the darkness, <br>Desired and swift, <br>And caught at the rays of the moon, yet found but darkness, <br>Caught at the flash of his feet, to fill his hands <br>With the sleepy pour of sands.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'O moon!' he said: 'was it you I followed? <br>You, who put silver madness into my eyes? -' <br>But he only heard, in the dark, a stifled laughter, <br>And the rattle of dead leaves blowing. <br>'O wind! -' he said - 'was it you I followed? <br>Your hand I felt against my face? -' <br>But he only heard, in the dark, a stifled laughter, <br>And shadows crept past him. with furtive pace, <br>Breathing night upon him; and one by one <br>The ghosts of leaves flew past him, seeking the sun.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And a silent star slipped golden down the darkness, <br>Down the great wall, leaving no trace in the sky, <br>And years went with it, and worlds. And he dreamed still <br>Of a fleeter shadow among the shadows running, <br>Foam into foam, without a gesture or cry, <br>Leaving him there, alone, on a lonely hill. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I. Part 2</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Evening: in the twilight town <br>One by one the stars stepped down, <br>Each to assume his destined place: <br>And there he saw the destined face.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Her eyes were void, here eyes were deep: <br>She came like one who moved in sleep: <br>And when she looked across the night <br>Beneath, among, those points of light, <br>Into his heart she shot a pang, <br>As if a voice within him sang, <br>Sang and was silent. Down the street, <br>And lost in darkness, fled the feet; <br>Ambiguous, the street-lamp's gleam <br>Mocked at her eyes, and then the dream <br>From shuttered window, shadowed hall, <br>Chuckled beyond a lampless wall.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Among the crowding lights he went, <br>Where faces massed like lillies blent, <br>And this time plucked and made his own <br>Above snarled music's undertone: <br>Breathing the perfume of her hair, <br>He touched her arm, but suddenly there <br>As in a dance of shadows fleeing <br>(His eyes were shut for fear of seeing) <br>He watched red roses dropt apart <br>Each to disclose a charnel heart.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Ghostly with powder in the night, <br>Her hand upon his arm was white: <br>Her gown was light, and lightly blew, <br>A gauze of flame it burned him through. <br>Under the singing lamp she stood, <br>And smiled in subtly fugitive mood, <br>From depth to depth of wingless skies <br>Withdrawing batlike down her eyes: <br>And in his heart an echo came <br>Of quick dust quaking under flame.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Pale walls enclosed them.One light shed <br>A yellow flicker across the bed. <br>Loud steps rang through the street, and then <br>The hush of night grew deep again. <br>Two shadows on the wall made one - <br>What human walls were here flung down, <br>The light extinguished as in pain, <br>The weak light dying in the brain? <br>Green leaves pushed up through yielding air <br>Greedy for life she loosed her hair <br>With conscious and indifferent hands. <br>. . . High on his cliff, above hard sands, <br>He saw the moonlit ocean come <br>In ever-inward rings of foam, <br>Heard them break to shoot and seethe <br>Ever inward far beneath: <br>The ringed horizon rhythmic coming <br>And in the moonlight silent foaming: <br>But the dream changed: thick minutes dripped: <br>Between his fingers a fleet light slipped: <br>Was gone, was lost: <br>And on the sand, or in his brain, <br>He saw red roses fall again: <br>Rose-wreathed skeletons advanced <br>And clumsily lifted foot and danced: <br>And he saw the roses drop apart <br>Each to disclose a charnel heart.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Whose were these loathed and empty eyes? <br>Who, falling, in these wingless skies? <br>This was not she: he rose, withdrew: <br>One shadow on the wall made two, <br>The human walls stood up again: <br>Far in the night, or in his brain, <br>He heard her whisper, felt her pass, <br>Shadow of spirit over glass. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I. Part 3</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And a silent star slipped golden down the darkness, <br>Taking his life with it, like a little cloud <br>Consumed in fire and speed, diffused in darkness: <br>Tangled and caught together, the days, the years, <br>His voice, his lifted hands, <br>Were ravelled and sped; where, by the sea, he bowed <br>And dreamed of the foam that crept back into the sea, <br>And the wandering leaves that crept back into the tree. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I. Part 4</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Roses, he thought, were kin to her, <br>Pure text of dust; and learning these <br>He might more surely win to her, <br>Speak her own tongue to pledge and please. <br>What vernal kinship, then, was this <br>That spoke and perished in a breath? <br>In leaves, she was near enough to kiss, <br>And yet, impalpable as death. <br>Spading dark earth, he tore apart <br>Exquisite roots: she fled from him. <br>Her stigma, in the crocus heart, <br>Probed for delicately, would swim <br>Lazily faint away on air, <br>Not to be caught or held: she fled <br>Before him, wavering, everywhere, <br>A summer's secret behind he shed. <br>Music? He found it under earth, <br>Quick veins of fire: he heard her sing. <br>Upward it broke, a springing mirth, <br>A fugitive and amazing thing, <br>It flashed before his crazy feet, <br>He danced upon it, it would not stay, <br>His hands against its brightness beat, <br>But still it broke in light away. <br>O bird - he cried - if bird you are, <br>Keep still those frantic wings a while! . . . <br>Thus dancing for the evening star, <br>In hope to capture it by guile. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I. Part 5</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The moon rose, and the moon set; <br>And the stars rushed up and whirled and set; <br>And again they swarmed, after a shaft of sunlight; <br>And the dark blue dusk closed above him, like an ocean of regret.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">White trident fires were lit on the tops of towers; <br>Monstrous and black the towers broke the sky. <br>The ghostly fountain shot and tumbled in showers; <br>Gaunt leaves turned down above it, thirstily. <br>The gold fish, and the fish with fins of silver, <br>Quivered in lamplight, rose with sinister eye, <br>And darted into the darkness, silently.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The faces that looked at him were his own faces, <br>They streamed along the streets, they licked like fire, <br>Flowed with undulant paces, <br>Reflected in the darkness stared at him, <br>Contemplative, despairing, <br>Swept silently aside, becoming dim, <br>With a vague impotent gesture at the sky, <br>Uncontrolled and little caring; <br>And he watched them with an introspective eye.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">To shape this world of leaderless ghostly passions - <br>Or else be mobbed by it - there was the question: <br>Green leaves above him whispered the slow question, <br>Black ripples on the pool chuckled of passions. <br>And between the uneasy shoulders of two trees, <br>Huge, against impalpable gust of blue, <br>A golden star slid down to leafy seas, <br>A star he somehow knew.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Youths tripped after him, laughing, but he fled them: <br>He heard them mock him, in affected tones. <br>Their lamia mouthes, so smiling, bade him fear them. <br>His own face leered at him, with timid lust, <br>Was overwhelmed in night. <br>He turned aside, and walked in graveyard dust, - <br>In the dew-dabbled, clinging dust, - <br>And terror seized him, seeing the stones so white; <br>And the wet grass, frozen and motionless in the moonlight; <br>And the green-tongued moonlight, crawling in thick dust.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Was it murky vapor, here, that dulled the stars? - <br>Or his own guilty breath that clouded heaven? - <br>Pale hands struck down with spades. <br>And it was he, with dew upon his face, <br>Who dug the foul earth in that dripping place, <br>Turning his back on heaven. <br>And it was he who found the desired dead; <br>And kissed the languid head; <br>While shadows frisked about him in moonlight, <br>Whirled and capered and leapt, <br>Caught each other and mimicked lust in the moonlight, <br>In the dew-wet dust, above the dead who slept.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But this - was it this he rose from and desired? <br>Black mould of leaves clung wetly about his feet. <br>He was lost, and alone, and tired, <br>A mist curled round him coldly, touched his face, <br>Shadows with eyes were gathering in that place; <br>And he dreamed of a lamplit street. <br>But roses fell through the darkness, <br>They writhed before him out of the mould, <br>Opened their hearts to pour out darkness, <br>Darkness of flesh, of lust grown old. <br>He struggled against them, beat, <br>Broke them with hands to feel the blood flow warm, <br>Reeled, when they opened their hearts, <br>Feeling them with their eyes closed push and swarm, <br>Thronging about his throat, pressing his mouth, <br>Beating his temples, choking his breath . . . <br>Help, you stars! - wet darkness showered upon him. <br>He was dissolved in a deep cold dream of death.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">White fires were lit upon the tops of towers, <br>The towers shouldered the sky: <br>The ghostly fountain shot and tumbled in showers, <br>Gaunt leaves leaned down above it, thirstily. <br>And he looked with laughter upon the lamplit ripples <br>Each with its little image of the light, <br>And thought the minds of men were like black ripples, <br>Ripples of darkness, darkly huddled in night, <br>Each of them with its image of lamp or star, <br>Thinking itself the star.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And it seemed to him, as he looked upon them, laughing, <br>That he was the star they all in light reflected. <br>He was the god who had been rejected, <br>Stoned and trampled upon a filthy street, <br>Hung up in lamplight for young men to beat, <br>Cursed and spat upon; and all for saying <br>There was no life save life of fast and praying. <br>Or had he been a beggar, with bare feet? <br>Or a cruel ascetic, trampling roses down? . . . <br>Roses are death! he cried. He turned in hatred, <br>And saw red fires burst up above the town; <br>And a swarm of faces rising, green with hatred.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And silence descended, on dripping trees: <br>And dew-spats slowly spat from leaves to stones. <br>He had walked these gardens, he thought, before. <br>The fountain chuckled; <br>The leaves rustled, in whispers, along a shore. <br>And the moon rose, and the moon set; <br>And the stars rushed up, and swarmed, and set; <br>And again they swarmed, after a shaft of sunlight; <br>And the blue dusk closed above him, like an ocean of regret. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">II. Part 1</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And at times it seemed, <br>Walking with her of whom he subtly dreamed, <br>That her young body was ringed with flame, <br>Hover of fire, <br>And that she went and came, <br>Impalpable fiery blossom of desire, <br>Into his heart and out of his heart again, <br>With every breath, and every breath was pain. <br>And if he touched her hand, she drew away, <br>Becoming something vast; and stretched her hair <br>Suddenly, like black rain, across the sun. <br>Till he grew fearful, seeing her there, <br>To think that he loved such a one, <br>Who rose against the sky to shut out day.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But at times it seemed, <br>Walking with her of whom he subtly dreamed, <br>(Music beneath the sea) <br>That she was texture of earth no less than he; <br>Among the leaves her face <br>Gleamed with familiar grace; <br>And walking slowly through old gardens, <br>Among the cool blue cedars, <br>Spreading her hands in the silent dazzle of sunlight, <br>Her voice and the air were sweetly married; <br>Her laughter trembled like music out of the earth; <br>her body was like the cool blue cedars, <br>Fragrant in sunlight. <br>And he quivered, to think that he was the blade, in sunlight, <br>To flash, and strip these boughs, and spill their fragrance.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Wind hurried the last year's leaves, their shadows hurried, <br>And clouds blew down the sky. <br>Where would they be with a year gone by? <br>Let us be quick: there is time to overcome: <br>The earth grows old, the moon is already dead, <br>But you are young, you tremble because you love me, <br>It is all we have. Let nothing more be said.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">What do we care for a star that floats down heaven, <br>That fiery tear of time? <br>It spoke to us once, it will not speak again, <br>It will be no more remembered than last year's rain; <br>There will be other dusks for us to walk through, <br>And other stars will float down heaven. <br>Time is undone: Between our hands it slips, <br>Goes out between us, the breath upon our lips.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Do not look over your shoulder to see it falling! <br>Shadows gather and brood, under the trees. <br>The world grows silent, it listens to hear us walking; <br>Let the star perish: we wander as we please. <br>Or is the earth beneath us an old star falling, <br>Falling through twilight to leafy seas? <br>The night grows damp: I will take your arm. <br>Follow the lanterns, lest we come to harm. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">IV. Part 6</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Twilight: a cold green sky. <br>Low massed clouds, with dazzling sinister edges, <br>And a sea gull, falling in high pale sunlight.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Dusk, - the encroachment of poisonous shadows, <br>The leisurely lighting of lamps; <br>And a gradual silence of restless trees.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Mist of twilight in my heart: <br>I who was always catching at fire. <br>Mould of black leaves under my feet; <br>I, whose star was desire.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Earth spins in her shadow. <br>Let us turn and go back <br>To the first of out loves - <br>The one who was moonlight and the fall of white roses!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=358609" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">We are struck down, we hear no music. <br>The moisture of night is in our hands. <br>Time takes us. We are eternal.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><a href="http://poems.citatepedia.com/">poem</a> by <strong><a rel="author" href="http://authors.citatepedia.com/by.php?a=Conrad+Potter+Aiken">Conrad Potter Aiken</a></strong></div>