5 Conrad Aiken Quotes on Music

Conrad Aiken quotes on music

31. My veins are afire with music, Her eyes have kissed me, my body is turned to light; I shall dream to her secret heart tonight...

46. Two lovers, here at the corner, by the steeple, Two lovers blow together like music blowing: And the crowd dissolves about them like a sea. Recurring waves of sound break vaguely about them, They drift from wall to wall, from tree to tree.

58. Of what she said to me that night-no matter. The strange thing came next day. My brain was full of music-something she played me-; I couldn't remember it all, but phrases of it Wreathed and wreathed among faint memories, Seeking for something, trying to tell me something, Urging to restlessness: verging on grief. I tried to play the tune, from memory,- But memory failed: the chords and discords climbed And found no resolution-only hung there, And left me morbid . . . Where, then, had I heard it? . . .

59. You know, without my telling you, how sometimes A word or name eludes you, and you seek it Through running ghosts of shadow,-leaping at it, Lying in wait for it to spring upon it, Spreading faint snares for it of sense or sound: Until, of a sudden, as if in a phantom forest, You hear it, see it flash among the branches, And scarcely knowing how, suddenly have it- Well, it was so I followed down this music, Glimpsing a face in darkness, hearing a cry, Remembering days forgotten, moods exhausted, Corners in sunlight, puddles reflecting stars-

60. The music ends. The screen grows dark. We hurry To go our devious secret ways, forgetting Those many lives . . . We loved, we laughed, we killed, We danced in fire, we drowned in a whirl of sea-waves. The flutes are stilled, and a thousand dreams are stilled.