Assessment: Day Four

There is this poem by Conrad Aiken - Morning Song of Senlin - which I love (read it here), especially this stanza:

"It is morning.
I stand by the mirror
And tie my tie once more.
While waves far off in a pale rose twilight
Crash on a white sand shore.

I stand by a mirror and comb my hair:
How small and white my face!—
The green earth tilts through a sphere of air
And bathes in a flame of space.
There are houses hanging above the stars
And stars hung under a sea...
And a sun far off in a shell of silence
Dapples my walls for me.... "

That is how I felt this morning.
And of course, Aiken has an evening song too! (read that here)

"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. "

-=-=-=-

Kudos, Mr. Aiken - and a pity that this be so fitting.