, short stories
, novel
s, a play and an autobiography.
Aiken was the son of wealthy, socially prominent New Englanders who had moved to Savannah, Georgia, where his father became a highly respected physician and brain surgeon. But then something happened for which, as Aiken later said, no one could ever find a reason. Without warning or apparent cause, his father became increasingly irascible, unpredictable, and violent.
Separate we come, and separate we go, And this be it known, is all that we know.
In the mazes of loitering people, the watchful and furtive,The shadows of tree-trunks and shadows of leaves,In the drowse of the sunlight, among the low voices,I suddenly face you
I love you, what star do you live on?
And the shadows of tree-trunks and shadows of leavesInterlace with low voices and footsteps and sunlightTo divide us forever.
Music I heard with you was more than music,And bread I broke with you was more than bread;Now that I am without you, all is desolate;All that was once so beautiful is dead.
My heart has become as hard as a city street,The horses trample upon it, it sings like iron,All day long and all night long they beat,They ring like the hooves of time.
My heart is torn with the sound of raucous voices,They shout from the slums, from the streets, from the crowded places,And tunes from the hurdy-gurdy that coldly rejoicesShoot arrows into my heart.
O sweet clean earth, from whom the green blade cometh!When we are dead, my best belovèd and I,Close well above us, that we may rest forever,Sending up grass and blossoms to the sky.
All lovely things will have an ending,All lovely things will fade and die,And youth, that's now so bravely spending,Will beg a penny by and by.
Come back, true love! Sweet youth, return!—But time goes on, and will, unheeding,Though hands will reach, and eyes will yearn,And the wild days set true hearts bleeding.