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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=358560" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>From: Time In The Rock</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXIV<br>If one voice, not another, must speak first, <br>out of the silence, the stillness, the preceding— <br>speaking clearly, speaking slowly, measuring calmly <br>the heavy syllables of doubt, or of despair— <br>speaking passionately, speaking bitterly, hunger or hope <br>ordering the words, that are like sounds of flame—: <br>if one speaks first, before that other or the third, <br>out of the silence bringing the dark message, <br>the grave and great acceptance of the rock, <br>the huge world, held in the huge hand of faith: </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>and if it says, I hold the world like this; <br>here in the light, amid these crumbling walls; <br>here in the half-light, the deceptive moment, <br>here in the darkness like a candle lifted—: <br>take it, relieve me of it, bear it away; <br>have it, now and forever, for your own; <br>this that was mine, this that my voice made mine, <br>this that my word has shaped for you— </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>if this voice speaks before us, speaks before <br>ourselves can speak, challenging thus the dark; <br>waking the sleeping watcher from his sleep, <br>altering the dreamer’s dream while still he dreams; <br>so that on waking—ah, what despair he knows! <br>to learn that while he slept the world was made— <br>made by that voice, and himself made no less, <br>and now inalterably curved forever— </div><div style="margin:10px 0">yes, if to wake, to cease to dream, be this, <br>to face a self made ready while we slept, <br>shaped in the world’s shape by the single voice— <br>if thus we wake too late and find ourselves <br>already weeping, already upon the road <br>that climbs past shame and pain to crucifixion— <br>seeing at once, with eyes, just opened, the world, <br>vast, bright, and cruciform, on which so soon <br>ascending we must die— <br>and to look backward, <br>but know no turning back; to go forward, <br>even as we turn our faces to the past; <br>still gazing downward from the hill we climb, <br>searching the dark for that strange dream we had, <br>which the voice altered and broke— <br>ah, can it comfort us, <br>us helpless, us thus shaped by a word, <br>sleepwalking shadows in the voice-shaped world, <br>ah, can it comfort us that we ourselves <br>will bear the word with us, we too, we too <br>to speak, again, again, again, again,— <br>ourselves the voice for those not yet awakened,— <br>altering the dreams of those who dream, and shaping, <br>while still they sleep, their inescapable pain—? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LX<br>The chairback will cast a shadow on the white wall, <br>you can observe its shape, the square of paper <br>will receive and record the impulse of the pencil <br>and keep it too till time rubs it out <br>the seed will arrange as suits it the shape of the earth <br>to right or left thrusting, and the old clock <br>goes fast or slow as it rusts or is oiled. <br>These things or others for your consideration <br>these changes or others, these records <br>or others less permanent. Come if you will <br>to the sea’s edge, the beach of hard sand, <br>notice how the wave designs itself in quick bubbles <br>the wave’s ghost etched in bubbles and then gone, <br>froth of a suggestion, and then gone. <br>Notice too the path of the wind in a field of wheat, <br>the motion indicated. Notice in a mirror <br>how the lips smile, so little, and for so little while. <br>Notice how little, and how seldom, you notice <br>the movement of the eyes in your own face, reflection <br>of a moment’s reflection. What were you thinking <br>to deliver to the glass this instant of change, what margin <br>belonged only to the expectation of echo <br>and was calculated perhaps to that end, what was left <br>essential or immortal? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Your hand too, <br>gloved perhaps, encased, but none the less <br>already bone, already a skeleton, <br>sharp as a fingerpost that points to time— <br>what record does it leave, and where, what paper <br>does it inscribe with an immortal message? <br>where, and with what permanence, does it say ‘I’? <br>Perhaps giving itself to the lover’s hand <br>or in a farewell, or in a blow, <br>or in a theft, which will pay interest. <br>Perhaps in your own pocket, jingling coins, <br>or against a woman’s breast. Perhaps holding <br>the pencil dictated by another’s thought. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">These things do not perplex, these things are simple,— <br>but what of the heart that wishes to survive change <br>and cannot, its love lost in confusions and dismay—? <br>what of the thought dispersed in its own algebras, <br>hypothesis proved fallacy? what of the will <br>which finds its aim unworthy? Are these, too, simple? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LXVII<br>Walk man on the stage of your own imagining <br>peel an orange or dust your shoe, take from your pocket <br>the soiled handkerchief and blow your nose <br>as if it were indeed necessary to be natural <br>and speak too if an idea should recommend itself <br>speak to the large bright imaginary audience <br>that flattering multiplication of yourself <br>so handsomely deployed and so expectant <br>tell them between flingings of orange peel <br>or such other necessary details of your rôle <br>precisely what they are, or what you are <br>since—lamentably—they are so much the same thing. <br>Decrepit inheritor of the initial star! <br>do you yourself sometimes imagine <br>or even perhaps say to that peculiar audience <br>something of this? as that yourself and they <br>comprise one statement? supercilious <br>the actor may be, often is, to those who hear him <br>but to be supercilious to one’s self <br>even in one’s dramatic moments!—marvellous <br>decay of what in God’s first declaration <br>might have been good.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Conrad+Potter+Aiken">Conrad Potter Aiken</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=358560" data-title="From: Time In The Rock de Conrad Potter Aiken" data-description="XXIV
If one voice, not another, must speak first, 
out of the silence, the stillness, the preceding— 
speaking clearly, speaking slowly, measuring calmly 
the heavy syllables of doubt, or of despair— 
speaking passionately, speaking bitterly, ..."></div>
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