MORNING SONG OF SENLIN

By: Conrad Aiken
July 24, 2025

A series dedicated to poems, published c. 1900–1935, the Radium Age sf-adjacent themes of which include: dystopia and utopia, far-out mathematics and the fourth dimension, Afro-futurism, catastrophe, future war, new technologies, scientific breakthrough, dehumanization, cosmic awe, disenchantment and unseen forces, unknowable aliens and singularity. Research and selection by Joshua Glenn; thematic index here.

Rodchenko’s “Superimposed Triangles” (1918)

It is morning, Senlin says, and in the
morning
When the light drips through the shutters
like the dew,
I arise, I face the sunrise,
And do the things my fathers learned to do.
Stars in the purple dusk above the rooftops
Pale in a saffron mist and seem to die,
And I myself on a swiftly tilting planet
Stand before a glass and tie my tie.

Vine leaves tap my window,
Dew-drops sing to the garden stones,
The robin chirps in the chinaberry tree
Repeating three clear tones.

It is morning. I stand by the mirror
And tie my tie once more.
While waves far off in a pale rose twilight
Crash on a white sand shore.
I stand by a mirror and comb my hair:
How small and white my face! —
The green earth tilts through a sphere of
air
And bathes in a flame of space.

There are houses hanging above the stars
And stars hung under a sea…
And a sun far off in a shell of silence
Dapples my walls for me…

It is morning, Senlin says, and in the
     morning
Should I not pause in the light to
     remember god?
Upright and firm I stand on a star unstable,
He is immense and lonely as a cloud.
I will dedicate this moment before my
     mirror
To him alone, for him I will comb my hair.
Accept these humble offerings, cloud of
     silence!
I will think of you as I descend the stair.

Vine leaves tap my window,
The snail-track shines on the stones,
Dew-drops flash from the chinaberry tree
Repeating two clear tones.

It is morning, I awake from a bed of silence,
Shining I rise from the starless waters of
     sleep.
The walls are about me still as in the
     evening,
I am the same, and the same name still I
     keep.
The earth revolves with me, yet makes no
     motion,
The stars pale silently in a coral sky.
In a whistling void I stand before my mirror,
Unconcerned, and tie my tie.

There are horses neighing on far-off hills
Tossing their long white manes,
And mountains flash in the rose-white
dusk,
Their shoulders black with rains…
It is morning. I stand by the mirror
And surprise my soul once more;
The blue air rushes above my ceiling,
There are suns beneath my floor…

… It is morning, Senlin says, I ascend from
     darkness
And depart on the winds of space for I
     know not where,
My watch is wound, a key is in my pocket,
And the sky is darkened as I descend the
     stair.
There are shadows across the windows,
     clouds in heaven,
And a god among the stars; and I will go
Thinking of him as I might think of
     daybreak
And humming a tune I know…

Vine-leaves tap at the window,
Dew-drops sing to the garden stones,
The robin chirps in the chinaberry tree
Repeating three clear tones.

— Taken from a longer cycle included in the 1918 collection The Charnel Rose.

Senlin is an arch, over-sensitive character in the same vein as T.S. Eliot’s Prufrock or Wallace Stevens’ Crispin (in “Comedian as the letter C”), introspective and detached from the real world, though engaged in a continuous search for meaning and understanding of himself and the world around him. (At Harvard, Aiken edited the Advocate with T. S. Eliot, who became a lifelong friend, colleague, and influence.)

Fun fact: Madeleine L’Engle’s 1978 novel A Swiftly Tilting Planet (the third in her Time Quintet series, following A Wrinkle in Time and A Wind in the Door) draws its title from a line in this poem.

Here’s another Fun Fact.

Aiken’s tombstone/bench in Savannah, Georgia:

***

MORNING SONG OF SENLIN

Categories

Tags