The House of Dust; a symphony

Author:Conrad Aiken
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Poetry
Published: 1998-02-28T16:00:00+00:00

What, then's, the secret of this ultimate chamber—

Or innermost, rather? If I see it clearly

It is the last, and cunningest, resort

Of one who has found this world of dust and flesh,—

This world of lamentations, death, injustice,

Sickness, humiliation, slow defeat,

Bareness, and ugliness, and iteration,—

Too meaningless; or, if it has a meaning,

Too tiresomely insistent on one meaning:

Futility . . . This world, I hear you saying,—

With lifted chin, and arm in outflung gesture,

Coldly imperious,—this transient world,

What has it then to give, if not containing

Deep hints of nobler worlds? We know its beauties,—

Momentary and trivial for the most part,

Perceived through flesh, passing like flesh away,—

And know how much outweighed they are by darkness.

We are like searchers in a house of darkness,

A house of dust; we creep with little lanterns,

Throwing our tremulous arcs of light at random,

Now here, now there, seeing a plane, an angle,

An edge, a curve, a wall, a broken stairway

Leading to who knows what; but never seeing

The whole at once . . . We grope our way a little,

And then grow tired. No matter what we touch,

Dust is the answer—dust: dust everywhere.

If this were all—what were the use, you ask?

But this is not: for why should we be seeking,

Why should we bring this need to seek for beauty,

To lift our minds, if there were only dust?

This is the central chamber you have come to:

Turning your back to the world, until you came

To this deep room, and looked through rose-stained windows,

And saw the hues of the world so sweetly changed.

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