Evening Song Of Senlin

Read 'Evening Song Of Senlin' by 'Conrad Aiken' and provide your summary and literary analysis in the comments section below.

Evening Song Of Senlin by Conrad Aiken

 from Senlin: A Biography 


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

Form: Free verse

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