Quote #16

What did we build it for? Was it all a dream? . . . Ghostly above us in lamplight the towers gleam . . . And after a while they will fall to dust and rain; Or else we will tear them down with impatient hands; And hew rock out of the earth, and build them again.

More from Conrad Aiken

  1. Our hands are hot and raw with the stones we have laid, We have built a tower of stone high into the sky, We have built a city of towers.
  2. There, in the high bright window he dreams, and sees What we are blind to,-we who mass and crowd From wall to wall in the darkening of a cl…
  3. We flow, we descend, we turn . . . and the eternal dreamer Moves among us like light, like evening air . . .
  4. Before him, numberless lovers smiled and talked. And death was observed with sudden cries, And birth with laughter and pain. And the trees …
  5. 'I will ask them all, I will ask them all their dreams, I will hold my light above them and seek their faces. I will hear them whisper, inv…
  6. From high black walls, gleaming vaguely with rain, Each yellow light looked down like a golden eye. They trembled from coign to coign, and …
  7. The wandering one, the inquisitive dreamer of dreams, The eternal asker of answers, stands in the street, And lifts his palms for the first…
  8. From some, the light was scarcely more than a gloom: From some, a dazzling desire.

All Conrad Aiken quotes