Halloween
By Conrad Aiken

...O you who made magic
under an oak tree once in the sunlight
translating your acorns to green cups and saucers
for the grandchild mute at the tree's foot,
and died, alone, on a doorstep at midnight
your vision complete but your work undone,
with your dream of a world religion,
a peace convention of religions, a worship
purified of myth and of dogma:
dear scarecrow, dear pumpkin head!
who masquerade now as my child, to assure
the continuing love, the continuing dream,
and the heart and the hearth and the wholeness-
it was so, it is so, and the life so lived
shines this night like the moon over Sheepfold Hill,
and he who interpreted the wonders of god
is himself dissolved and interpreted.
Rest: be at peace. It suffices to know and to rest.
For the singers, in rest, shall stand as a river
whose source is unending forever...

This excerpt from "Halloween" by Conrad Aiken and comments by Richard A. Kellawaycan be found in its entirety at: http://members.pgonline.com/~iankluge/aikeneliot.htm

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