| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. (1878–1962). Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1920. 1920. |
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| Asphalt |
| | | Conrad Aiken (1889–1973) |
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| LIGHT your cigarette, then, in this shadow, | |
| And talk to her, your arm engaged with hers. | |
| Heavily over your heads the eaten maple | |
| In the dead air of August strains and stirs. | |
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| Her stone-white face, in the lamp-light, turns toward you; | 5 |
| Darkly, with time-dark eyes, she questions you | |
| Whether this universe is what she thinks it— | |
| Simple and passionate and profound and true— | |
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| Or whether, as with a sound of dim disaster, | |
| A plaintive music brought to a huddled fall, | 10 |
| Some ancient treachery slides through the heart of things— | |
| The last star falling, seen from the utmost wall … | |
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| And you—what sinister, far, reserves of laughter, | |
| What understandings, remote, perplexed, remain | |
| Unguessed forever by her who is your victim— | 15 |
| Victim, of whom you too are victim again? | |
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| … Come! let us dance once more on the ancient asphalt: | |
| Seeing, beneath its strange and recent shape, | |
| The eternal horror of rock, from which, for ever, | |
We toss our tortured hands, to no escape.
The Dial | 20 |
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