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Conrad Aiken Quotes

1889–1973 United States

Conrad Potter Aiken (5 August 1889 – 17 August 1973) was an American writer and poet.

United States
20th-century poets
Academics
Critics
Essayists

Also known as: Aiken, Conrad

Random Conrad Aiken quote

31 quotes

Separate we come and separate we go,
And this, be it known, is all that we know.

Walk with me world, upon my right hand walk,
speak to me Babel, that I may strive to assemble
of all these syllables a single word
before the purpose of speech is gone.

I love you, what star do you live on?

Chance Meetings (1917)

Death is a meeting place of sea and sea.

The House of Dust (1916)

And the shadows of tree-trunks and shadows of leaves
Interlace with low voices and footsteps and sunlight
To divide us forever.

Chance Meetings (1917)

Come back, true love! Sweet youth, return!—
But time goes on, and will, unheeding,
Though hands will reach, and eyes will yearn,
And the wild days set true hearts bleeding.

All Lovely Things (1916)

In one room, silently, lover looks upon lover,
And thinks the air is fire.

The House of Dust (1916)

My heart has become as hard as a city street,
The horses trample upon it, it sings like iron,
All day long and all night long they beat,
They ring like the hooves of time.

Discordants (1916)

'When you are dead your spirit will find my spirit,
And then we shall die no more.'

The House of Dust (1916)

The poet walked alone in a cold late rain,
And thought his grief was like the crying of sea-birds;
For his lover was dead, he never would love again.

The House of Dust (1916)

Each gleaming point of light is like a seed
Dilating swiftly to coiling fires.
Each cloud becomes a rapidly dimming face,
Each hurrying face records its strange desires.

The House of Dust (1916)

From some, the light was scarcely more than a gloom:
From some, a dazzling desire.

The House of Dust (1916)

All lovely things will have an ending,
All lovely things will fade and die,
And youth, that's now so bravely spending,
Will beg a penny by and by.

All Lovely Things (1916)

The young boy whistles, hurrying down the street,
The young girl hums beneath her breath.
One goes out to beauty, and does not know it.
And one goes out to death.

The House of Dust (1916)

Something had changed—but it was not the street—
The street was just the same—it was himself.

The House of Dust (1916)

Lovers walk in the noontime by that fountain.
Pigeons dip their beaks to drink from the water.
And soon the pond must freeze.

The House of Dust (1916)

We reach vague-gesturing hands, we lift our heads,
Hear sounds far off,—and dream, with quivering breath,
Our curious separate ways through life and death.

The House of Dust (1916)

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 House of Dust (1916)

Music I heard with you was more than music,
And bread I broke with you was more than bread;
Now that I am without you, all is desolate;
All that was once so beautiful is dead.

Discordants (1916)

O sweet clean earth, from whom the green blade cometh!
When we are dead, my best belovèd and I,
Close well above us, that we may rest forever,
Sending up grass and blossoms to the sky.

Discordants (1916)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Conrad Aiken (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.