Nocturne of Remembered Spring

This extended setting is a sort of meditation on memories of past love, as the speaker remembers traveling old paths of place and memory. It captures the quiet calm of graceful scenes that poet Conrad Aiken depicts, as the speaker in the poem relives a special time in youth when two people shared a memorable night full of talking over life's deepest subjects, walking along the nighttime thoroughfares, enjoying the swaying of music in the night, the scent of lilacs dripping with the gentle rain, and the inner warmth of exploring life's mysteries with that one person whose presence turns prosaic activity into poetic intimacy. Set from the title poem of the fourth collection of poems by American poet Conrad Aiken published in 1917, it is constructed in six parts that are full of lush imagery and magical color, an early masterpiece from this marvelous poet who went on to win the Pulitzer Prize and numerous other honors.