EVENSONG

by: Conrad Aiken (1889-1973)

I

N the pale mauve twilight, streaked with orange,

Exquisitely sweet,--

She leaned upon her balcony and looked across the street;

And across the huddled roofs of the misty city,

Across the hills of tenements, so gray,

She looked into the west with a young and infinite pity,

With a young and wistful pity, as if to say

The dark was coming, and irresistible night,

Which man would attempt to meet

With here and there a little flickering light. . . .

The orange faded, the housetops all were black,

And a strange and beautiful quiet

Came unexpected, came exquisitely sweet,

On market-place and street;

And where were lately crowds and sounds and riot

Was a gentle blowing of wind, a murmur of leaves,

A single step, or voice, and under the eaves

The scrambling of sparrows; and then the hush swept back.

 

II

 

She leaned upon her balcony, in the darkness,

Folding her hands beneath her chin;

And watched the lamps begin

Here and there to pierce like eyes the darkness,--

From windows, luminous rooms,

And from the damp dark street

Between the moving branches, and the leaves with rain still sweet.

It was strange: the leaves thus seen,

With the lamplight's cold bright glare thrown up among them,--

The restless maple leaves,

Twinkling their myriad shadows beneath the eaves,--

Were lovelier, almost, than with sunlight on them,

So bright they were with young translucent green;

Were lovelier, almost, than with moonlight on them. . . .

And looking so wistfully across the city,

With such a young, and wise, and infinite pity

For the girl who had no lover

To walk with her along a street like this,

With slow steps in the rain, both aching for a kiss,--

It seemed as if all evenings were the same,

As if all evenings came

With just such tragic peacefulness as this;

With just such hint of loneliness or pain,

The quiet after rain.

 

III

 

Would her lover, then, grow old sooner than she,

And find a night like this too damp to walk?

Would he prefer to stay indoors and talk,

Or read the evening paper, while she sewed, or darned a sock,

And listened to the ticking of the clock:

Would he prefer it to lamplight on a tree?

Would he be old and tired,

And, having all the comforts he desired,

Take no interest in the twilight coming down

So beautifully and quietly on the town?

Would her lover, then, grow old sooner than she?

 

IV

 

A neighbor started singing, singing a child to sleep.

It was strange: a song thus heard,--

In the misty evening, after an afternoon of rain,--

Seemed more beautiful than happiness, more beautiful than pain,

Seemed to escape the music and the word,

Only, somehow, to keep

A warmth that was lovelier than the song of any bird.

Was it because it came up through this tree,

Through the lucent leaves that twinkled on this tree,

With the bright lamp there beneath them in the street?

It was exquisitely sweet:

So unaffected, so unconscious that it was heard.

Or was it because she looked across the city,

Across the hills of tenements, so black,

And thought of all the mothers with a young and infinite pity? . . .

The child had fallen asleep, the hush swept back,

The leaves hung lifeless on the tree.

 

V

 

It was too bad the sky was dark.

A cat came slinking close along the wall.

For the moon was full just now, and in the park,

If the sky were clear at all,

The lovers upon the moonlight grass would sprawl,

And whisper in the shadows, and laugh, and there

She would be going, maybe, with a white rose in her hair . . .

But would youth at last grow weary of these things,

Of the ribbons and the laces,

And the latest way of putting up one's hair?

Would she no longer care,

In that undiscovered future of recurring springs,

If, growing old and plain, she no longer turned the faces

And saw the people stare?

Would she hear music and not yearn

To take her lover's arm for one more turn? . . .

The leaves hung breathless on the dripping maple tree,

The man across the street was going out.

It was the evening made her think such things, no doubt.

But would her lover grow old sooner than she? . . .

Only the evening made her think such things, no doubt. . . .

 

VI

 

And yet, and yet,--

Seeing the tired city, and the trees so still and wet,--

It seemed as if all evenings were the same;

As if all evenings came,

Despite her smile at thinking of a kiss,

With just such tragic peacefulness as this;

With just such hint of loneliness or pain;

The perfect quiet that comes after rain.

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