Quotes from Conrad Aiken

The moon rose, and the moon set; And the stars rushed up and whirled and set; And again they swarmed, after a shaft of sunlight; And the dark blue dusk closed above him, like an ocean of regret.

Silence thronged the room, and he was aware of the focused scrutiny of the three people who confronted him.

Beyond the doctor's shoulder was the fire, the fingers of flame making light prestidigitation against the sooty fireback, the soft sound of their random flutter the only sound.

Know thyself! That was the best joke ever perpetrated. A steaming universe of germ-cells, a maelstrom of animal forces, of which he himself, his personality, was only the collective gleam.

So, talking with my first wife, At the dark end of evening, when she leaned And smiled at me, with blue eyes weaving webs Of finest fire, revolving me in scarlet,-- Calling to mind remote and small successions Of countless other evenings ending so,-- I smiled, and met her kiss, and wished her dead

Once more we turn in pain, bewildered, Among our finite walls: The walls we built ourselves with patient hands; For the god who sealed a question in our flesh.