The Project Gutenberg eBook ofSelected Poems

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofSelected PoemsThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Selected PoemsAuthor: Aldous HuxleyRelease date: August 6, 2021 [eBook #66000]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Tim Lindell, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SELECTED POEMS ***

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Selected PoemsAuthor: Aldous HuxleyRelease date: August 6, 2021 [eBook #66000]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Tim Lindell, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

Title: Selected Poems

Author: Aldous Huxley

Release date: August 6, 2021 [eBook #66000]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Tim Lindell, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SELECTED POEMS ***

Selected Poems

Aldous HuxleyD APPLETON AND COMPANYNEW YORK MCMXXV

Printed and made in Great Britain

SHEPHERD, to yon tall poplars tune your flute:Let them pierce, keenly, subtly shrill,The slow blue rumour of the hill;Let the grass cry with an anguish of evening gold,And the great sky be mute.Then hearken how the poplar trees unfoldTheir buds, yet close and gummed and blind,In airy leafage of the mind,Rustling in silvery whispers the twin-hued scalesThat fade not nor grow old.“Poplars and fountains and you cypress spiresSpringing in dark and rusty flame,Seek you aught that hath a name?Or say, say: Are you all an upward agonyOf undefined desires?“Say, are you happy in the golden marchOf sunlight all across the day?Or do you watch the uncertain wayThat leads the withering moon on cloudy stairsOver the heaven’s wide arch?“Is it towards sorrow or towards joy you liftThe sharpness of your trembling spears?Or do you seek, through the grey tearsThat blur the sky, in the heart of the triumphing blue,A deeper, calmer rift?”So; I have tuned my music to the trees,And there were voices dim belowTheir shrillness, voices swelling slowIn the blue murmur of hills, and a golden cryAnd then vast silences.

SHEPHERD, to yon tall poplars tune your flute:Let them pierce, keenly, subtly shrill,The slow blue rumour of the hill;Let the grass cry with an anguish of evening gold,And the great sky be mute.

Then hearken how the poplar trees unfoldTheir buds, yet close and gummed and blind,In airy leafage of the mind,Rustling in silvery whispers the twin-hued scalesThat fade not nor grow old.

“Poplars and fountains and you cypress spiresSpringing in dark and rusty flame,Seek you aught that hath a name?Or say, say: Are you all an upward agonyOf undefined desires?

“Say, are you happy in the golden marchOf sunlight all across the day?Or do you watch the uncertain wayThat leads the withering moon on cloudy stairsOver the heaven’s wide arch?

“Is it towards sorrow or towards joy you liftThe sharpness of your trembling spears?Or do you seek, through the grey tearsThat blur the sky, in the heart of the triumphing blue,A deeper, calmer rift?”

So; I have tuned my music to the trees,And there were voices dim belowTheir shrillness, voices swelling slowIn the blue murmur of hills, and a golden cryAnd then vast silences.

MY green aquarium of phantom fish,Goggling in on me through the misty panes;My rotting leaves and fields spongy with rains;My few clear quiet autumn days—I wishI could leave all, clearness and mistiness;Sodden or goldenly crystal, all too still.Yes, and I too rot with the leaves that fillThe hollows in the woods; I am grown lessThan human, listless, aimless as the greenIdiot fishes of my aquarium,Who loiter down their dim tunnels and comeAnd look at me and drift away, nought seenOr understood, but only glazedlyReflected. Upwards, upwards through the shadows,Through the lush sponginess of deep-sea meadowsWhere hare-lipped monsters batten, let me plyWinged fins, bursting this matrix dark to findJewels and movement, mintage of sunlightScattered largely by the profuse wind,And gulfs of blue brightness, too deep for sight.Free, newly born, on roads of music and airSpeeding and singing, I shall seek the placeWhere all the shining threads of water race,Drawn in green ropes and foamy meshes. There,On the red fretted ramparts of a towerOf coral rooted in the depths, shall breakAn endless sequence of joy and speed and power:Green shall shatter to foam; flake with white flakeShall create an instant’s shining constellationUpon the blue; and all the air shall beFull of a million wings that swift and freeLaugh in the sun, all power and strong elation.Yes, I shall seek that reef, which is beyondAll isles however magically sleepingIn tideless seas, uncharted and unconnedSave by blind eyes: beyond the laughter and weepingThat brood like a cloud over the lands of men.Movement, passion of colour and pure wings,Curving to cut like knives—these are the thingsI search for:—passion beyond the kenOf our foiled violences, and, more swiftThan any blow which man aims against time,The invulnerable, motion that shall riftAll dimness with the lightning of a rhyme,Or note, or colour. And the body shall beQuick as the mind; and will shall find releaseFrom bondage to brute things; and joyouslySoul, will and body, in the strength of triune peace,Shall live the perfect grace of power unwasted.And love consummate, marvellously blendingPassion and reverence in a single springOf quickening force, till now never yet tasted,But ever ceaselessly thirsted for, shall crownThe new life with its ageless starry fire.I go to seek that reef, far down, far downBelow the edge of everyday’s desire,Beyond the magical islands, where of oldI was content, dreaming, to give the lieTo misery. They were all strong and boldThat thither came; and shall I dare to try?

MY green aquarium of phantom fish,Goggling in on me through the misty panes;My rotting leaves and fields spongy with rains;My few clear quiet autumn days—I wish

I could leave all, clearness and mistiness;Sodden or goldenly crystal, all too still.Yes, and I too rot with the leaves that fillThe hollows in the woods; I am grown less

Than human, listless, aimless as the greenIdiot fishes of my aquarium,Who loiter down their dim tunnels and comeAnd look at me and drift away, nought seen

Or understood, but only glazedlyReflected. Upwards, upwards through the shadows,Through the lush sponginess of deep-sea meadowsWhere hare-lipped monsters batten, let me ply

Winged fins, bursting this matrix dark to findJewels and movement, mintage of sunlightScattered largely by the profuse wind,And gulfs of blue brightness, too deep for sight.

Free, newly born, on roads of music and airSpeeding and singing, I shall seek the placeWhere all the shining threads of water race,Drawn in green ropes and foamy meshes. There,

On the red fretted ramparts of a towerOf coral rooted in the depths, shall breakAn endless sequence of joy and speed and power:Green shall shatter to foam; flake with white flake

Shall create an instant’s shining constellationUpon the blue; and all the air shall beFull of a million wings that swift and freeLaugh in the sun, all power and strong elation.

Yes, I shall seek that reef, which is beyondAll isles however magically sleepingIn tideless seas, uncharted and unconnedSave by blind eyes: beyond the laughter and weeping

That brood like a cloud over the lands of men.Movement, passion of colour and pure wings,Curving to cut like knives—these are the thingsI search for:—passion beyond the kenOf our foiled violences, and, more swiftThan any blow which man aims against time,The invulnerable, motion that shall riftAll dimness with the lightning of a rhyme,

Or note, or colour. And the body shall beQuick as the mind; and will shall find releaseFrom bondage to brute things; and joyouslySoul, will and body, in the strength of triune peace,

Shall live the perfect grace of power unwasted.And love consummate, marvellously blendingPassion and reverence in a single springOf quickening force, till now never yet tasted,

But ever ceaselessly thirsted for, shall crownThe new life with its ageless starry fire.I go to seek that reef, far down, far downBelow the edge of everyday’s desire,

Beyond the magical islands, where of oldI was content, dreaming, to give the lieTo misery. They were all strong and boldThat thither came; and shall I dare to try?

DAY after day,At spring’s return,I watch my flowers, how they burnTheir lives away.The candle crocusAnd daffodil goldDrink fire of the sunshine—Quickly cold.And the proud tulip—How red he glows!—Is quenched ere summerCan kindle the rose.Purple as the innermostCore of a sinking flame,Deep in the leaves the violets smoulderTo the dust whence they came.Day after dayAt spring’s return,I watch my flowers, how they burnTheir lives away,Day after day....

DAY after day,At spring’s return,I watch my flowers, how they burnTheir lives away.

The candle crocusAnd daffodil goldDrink fire of the sunshine—Quickly cold.

And the proud tulip—How red he glows!—Is quenched ere summerCan kindle the rose.

Purple as the innermostCore of a sinking flame,Deep in the leaves the violets smoulderTo the dust whence they came.

Day after dayAt spring’s return,I watch my flowers, how they burnTheir lives away,Day after day....

FINE as the dust of plumy fountains blowingAcross the lanterns of a revelling night,The tiny leaves of April’s earliest growingPowder the trees—so vaporously light,They seem to float, billows of emerald foamBlown by the South on its bright airy tide,Seeming less trees than things beatified,Come from the world of thought which was their home.For a while only. Rooted strong and fast,Soon will they lift towards the summer skyTheir mountain-mass of clotted greenery.Their immaterial season quickly past,They grow opaque, and therefore needs must die,Since every earth to earth returns at last.

For a while only. Rooted strong and fast,Soon will they lift towards the summer skyTheir mountain-mass of clotted greenery.Their immaterial season quickly past,They grow opaque, and therefore needs must die,Since every earth to earth returns at last.

IN the middle of countries, far from hills and sea,Are the little places one passes by in trainsAnd never stops at; where the skies extendUninterrupted, and the level plainsStretch green and yellow and green without an end.And behind the glass of their Grand ExpressFolk yawn away a province through,With nothing to think of, nothing to do,Nothing even to look at—never a “view”In this damned wilderness.But I look out of the window and findMuch to satisfy the mind.Mark how the furrows, formed and wheeledIn a motion orderly and staid,Sweep, as we pass, across the fieldLike a drilled army on parade.And here’s a market-garden, barredWith stripe on stripe of varied greens....Bright potatoes, flower starred,And the opacous colour of beans.Each line deliberately swingsTowards me, till I see a straightGreen avenue to the heart of things,The glimpse of a sudden opened gatePiercing the adverse walls of fate....A moment only, and then, fast, fast,The gate swings to, the avenue closes;Fate laughs, and once more interposesIts barriers.The train has passed.

THE stars are golden instants in the deepFlawless expanse of night: the moon is set:The river sleeps, entranced, a smooth cool sleepSeeming so motionless that I forgetThe hollow booming bridges, where it slides,Dark with the sad looks that it bears along,Towards a sea whose unreturning tidesRavish the sighted ships and the sailors’ song.

NOONDAY upon the Alpine meadowsPours its avalanche of LightAnd blazing flowers: the very shadowsTranslucent are and bright.It seems a glory that nought surpasses—Passion of angels in form and hue—When, lo! from the jewelled heaven of the grassesLeaps a lightning of sudden blue.Dimming the sun-drunk petals,Bright even unto pain,The grasshopper flashes, settles,And then is quenched again.

ONCE more the windless days are here,Quiet of autumn, when the yearHalts and looks backward and draws breathBefore it plunges into death.Silver of mist and gossamers,Through-shine of noonday’s glassy gold,Pale blue of skies, where nothing stirsSave one blanched leaf, weary and old,That over and over slowly fallsFrom the mute elm-trees, hanging on airLike tattered flags along the wallsOf chapels deep in sunlit prayer.Once more.... Within its flawless glassTo-day reflects that other day,When, under the bracken, on the grass,We who were lovers happily layAnd hardly spoke, or framed a thoughtThat was not one with the calm hillsAnd crystal sky. Ourselves were nought,Our gusty passions, our burning willsDissolved in boundlessness, and weWere almost bodiless, almost free.The wind has shattered silver and gold;Night after night of sparkling cold,Orion lifts his tangled feetFrom where the tossing branches beatIn a fine surf against the sky.So the trance ended, and we grewRestless, we knew not how or why;And there were sudden gusts that blewOur dreaming banners into storm;We wore the uncertain crumbling formOf a brown swirl of windy leaves,A phantom shape that stirs and heavesShuddering from earth, to fall againWith a dry whisper of withered rain.Last, from the dead and shrunken daysWe conjured spring, lighting the blazeOf burnished tulips in the dark;And from black frost we struck a sparkOf blue delight and fragrance new,A little world of flowers and dew.Winter for us was over and done:The drought of fluttering leaves had grownEmerald shining in the sun,As light as glass, as firm as stone.Real once more: for we had passedThrough passion into thought again;Shaped our desires and made that fastWhich was before a cloudy pain;Moulded the dimness, fixed, definedIn a fair statue, strong and free,Twin bodies flaming into mind,Poised on the brink of ecstasy.

Last, from the dead and shrunken daysWe conjured spring, lighting the blazeOf burnished tulips in the dark;And from black frost we struck a sparkOf blue delight and fragrance new,A little world of flowers and dew.Winter for us was over and done:The drought of fluttering leaves had grownEmerald shining in the sun,As light as glass, as firm as stone.Real once more: for we had passedThrough passion into thought again;Shaped our desires and made that fastWhich was before a cloudy pain;Moulded the dimness, fixed, definedIn a fair statue, strong and free,Twin bodies flaming into mind,Poised on the brink of ecstasy.

THERE is a country in my mind,Lovelier than a poet blindCould dream of, who had never knownThis world of drought and dust and stoneIn all its ugliness: a placeFull of an all but human grace;Whose dells retain the printed formOf heavenly sleep, and seem yet warmFrom some pure body newly risen;Where matter is no more a prison,But freedom for the soul to knowIts native beauty. For things glowThere with an inward truth and areAll fire and colour like a star.And in that land are domes and towersThat hang as light and bright as flowersUpon the sky, and seem a birthRather of air than solid earth.Sometimes I dream that walking thereIn the green shade, all unawareAt a new turn of the golden glade,I shall see her, and as though afraidShall halt a moment and almost fallFor passing faintness, like a manWho feels the sudden spirit of PanBrimming his narrow soul with allThe illimitable world. And she,Turning her head, will let me seeThe first sharp dawn of her surpriseTurning to welcome in her eyes.And I shall come and take my loverAnd looking on her re-discoverAll her beauty:—her dark hairAnd the little ears beneath it, whereRoses of lucid shadow sleep;Her brooding mouth, and in the deepWells of her eyes reflected stars.Oh, the imperishable thingsThat hands and lips as well as wordsShall speak! Oh movement of white wings,Oh wheeling galaxies of birds!

Sometimes I dream that walking thereIn the green shade, all unawareAt a new turn of the golden glade,I shall see her, and as though afraidShall halt a moment and almost fallFor passing faintness, like a manWho feels the sudden spirit of PanBrimming his narrow soul with allThe illimitable world. And she,Turning her head, will let me seeThe first sharp dawn of her surpriseTurning to welcome in her eyes.And I shall come and take my loverAnd looking on her re-discoverAll her beauty:—her dark hairAnd the little ears beneath it, whereRoses of lucid shadow sleep;Her brooding mouth, and in the deepWells of her eyes reflected stars.

Oh, the imperishable thingsThat hands and lips as well as wordsShall speak! Oh movement of white wings,Oh wheeling galaxies of birds!

APETAL drifted looseFrom a great magnolia bloom,Your face hung in the gloom,Floating, white and close.We seemed alone: but anotherBent o’er you with lips of flame,Unknown, without a name,Hated, and yet my brother.Your one short moan of painWas an exorcising spell:The devil flew back to hell;We were alone again.

APETAL drifted looseFrom a great magnolia bloom,Your face hung in the gloom,Floating, white and close.

We seemed alone: but anotherBent o’er you with lips of flame,Unknown, without a name,Hated, and yet my brother.

Your one short moan of painWas an exorcising spell:The devil flew back to hell;We were alone again.

WHITE in the moonlight,Wet with dew,We have known the languorOf being two.We have been wearyAs children are,When over them, radiant,A stooping star,Bends their Good-Night,Kissed and smiled:—Each was mother,Each was child.Child, from your foreheadI kissed the hair,Gently, ah, gently:And you wereMistress and motherWhen on your breastI lay so safelyAnd could rest.

WHITE in the moonlight,Wet with dew,We have known the languorOf being two.

We have been wearyAs children are,When over them, radiant,A stooping star,

Bends their Good-Night,Kissed and smiled:—Each was mother,Each was child.

Child, from your foreheadI kissed the hair,Gently, ah, gently:And you were

Mistress and motherWhen on your breastI lay so safelyAnd could rest.

DARKNESS had stretched its colour,Deep blue across the pane:No cloud to make night duller,No moon with its tarnish stain;But only here and there a star,One sharp point of frosty fire,Hanging infinitely farIn mockery of our life and deathAnd all our small desire.Now in this hour of wakingFrom under brows of stone,A new pale day is breakingAnd the deep night is gone.Sordid now, and mean and smallThe daylight world is seen again,With only the veils of mist that fallDeaf and muffling over allTo hide its ugliness and pain.But to-day this dawn of meannessShines in my eyes, as whenThe new world’s brightness and cleannessBroke on the first of men.For the light that shows the huddled thingsOf this close-pressing earth,Shines also on your face and bringsAll its dear beauty back to meIn a new miracle of birth.I see you asleep and unpassioned,White-faced in the dusk of your hair—Your beauty so fleetingly fashionedThat it filled me once with despairTo look on its exquisite transienceAnd think that our love and thought and laughterPuff out with the death of our flickering sense,While we pass ever on and awayTowards some blank hereafter.But now I am happy, knowingThat swift time is our friend,And that our love’s passionate glowing,Though it turn ash in the end,Is a rose of fire that must blossom its wayThrough temporal stuff, nor else could beMore than a nothing. Into dayThe boundless spaces of night contractAnd in your opening eyes I seeNight born in day, in time eternity.

Now in this hour of wakingFrom under brows of stone,A new pale day is breakingAnd the deep night is gone.Sordid now, and mean and smallThe daylight world is seen again,With only the veils of mist that fallDeaf and muffling over allTo hide its ugliness and pain.

But to-day this dawn of meannessShines in my eyes, as whenThe new world’s brightness and cleannessBroke on the first of men.For the light that shows the huddled thingsOf this close-pressing earth,Shines also on your face and bringsAll its dear beauty back to meIn a new miracle of birth.

I see you asleep and unpassioned,White-faced in the dusk of your hair—Your beauty so fleetingly fashionedThat it filled me once with despairTo look on its exquisite transienceAnd think that our love and thought and laughterPuff out with the death of our flickering sense,While we pass ever on and awayTowards some blank hereafter.

But now I am happy, knowingThat swift time is our friend,And that our love’s passionate glowing,Though it turn ash in the end,Is a rose of fire that must blossom its wayThrough temporal stuff, nor else could beMore than a nothing. Into dayThe boundless spaces of night contractAnd in your opening eyes I seeNight born in day, in time eternity.

WE who are lovers sit by the fire,Cradled warm ’twixt thought and will,Sit and drowse like sleeping dogsIn the equipoise of all desire,Sit and listen to the stillSmall hiss and whisper of green logsThat burn away, that burn awayWith the sound of a far-off falling streamOf threaded water blown to steam,Grey ghost in the mountain world of grey.Vapours blue as distance riseBetween the hissing logs that showA glimpse of rosy heat below;And candles watch with tireless eyesWhile we sit drowsing here. I know,Dimly, that there exists a world,That there is time perhaps, and spaceOther and wider than this place,Where at the fireside drowsily curledWe hear the whisper and watch the flameBurn blinkless and inscrutable.And then I know those other namesThat through my brain from cell to cellEcho—reverberated shoutOf waiters mournful along corridors:But nobody carries the orders out,And the names (dear friends, your name and yours)Evoke no sign. But here I sitOn the wide hearth, and there are you:That is enough and only true.The world and the friends that lived in itAre shadows: you alone remainReal in this drowsing room,Full of the whispers of distant rainAnd candles staring into the gloom.

IHAD remarked—how sharply one observesWhen life is disappearing round the curvesOf yet another corner, out of sight!—I had remarked when it was “good luck” and “good night”And “a good journey to you,” on her faceCertain enigmas penned in the hieroglyphsOf that half frown and queer fixed smile and traceOf clouded thought in those brown eyes,Always so happily clear of hows and ifs—My poor bleared mind!—and haunting whys.There I stood, holding her farewell hand,(Pressing my life and soul and allThe world to one good-bye, till, smallAnd smaller pressed, why there I’d standDead when they vanished with the sight of her).And I saw that she had grown aware,Queer puzzled face! of other thingsBeyond the present and her own young speed,Of yesterday and what new days might breedMonstrously when the future bringsA charger with your late-lamented head:Aware of other people’s lives and will,Aware, perhaps, aware even of me....The joyous hope of it! But stillI pitied her; for it was sad to seeA goddess shorn of her divinity.In the midst of her speed she had made pause,And doubts with all their threat of claws,Outstripped till now by her unconsciousness,Had seized on her; she was proved mortal now.“Live, only live? For you were meantNever to know a thought’s distress,But a long glad astonishmentAt the world’s beauty and your own.The pity of you, goddess, grownPerplexed and mortal!”Yet ... yet ... can it beThat she is aware, perhaps, even of me?And life recedes, recedes; the curve is bare,My handkerchief flutters blankly in the air;And the question rumbles in the void:Was she aware, was she after all aware?

There I stood, holding her farewell hand,(Pressing my life and soul and allThe world to one good-bye, till, smallAnd smaller pressed, why there I’d standDead when they vanished with the sight of her).And I saw that she had grown aware,Queer puzzled face! of other thingsBeyond the present and her own young speed,Of yesterday and what new days might breedMonstrously when the future bringsA charger with your late-lamented head:Aware of other people’s lives and will,Aware, perhaps, aware even of me....The joyous hope of it! But stillI pitied her; for it was sad to seeA goddess shorn of her divinity.In the midst of her speed she had made pause,And doubts with all their threat of claws,Outstripped till now by her unconsciousness,Had seized on her; she was proved mortal now.“Live, only live? For you were meantNever to know a thought’s distress,But a long glad astonishmentAt the world’s beauty and your own.The pity of you, goddess, grownPerplexed and mortal!”Yet ... yet ... can it beThat she is aware, perhaps, even of me?

And life recedes, recedes; the curve is bare,My handkerchief flutters blankly in the air;And the question rumbles in the void:Was she aware, was she after all aware?

ALL fly—yet who is misanthrope?—The actual men and things that passJostling, to wither as the grassSo soon: and (be it heaven’s hope,Or poetry’s kaleidoscope,Or love or wine, at feast, at mass)Each owns a paradise of glassWhere never a yearning heliotropePursues the sun’s ascent or slope;For the sun dreams there, and no time is or was.Like fauns embossed in our domain,We look abroad, and our calm eyesMark how the goatish gods of painRevel; and if by grim surpriseThey break into our paradise,Patient we build its beauty up again.

Like fauns embossed in our domain,We look abroad, and our calm eyesMark how the goatish gods of painRevel; and if by grim surpriseThey break into our paradise,Patient we build its beauty up again.

Back to Index Next