Anniversaries poem – Aldous Huxley poems | Poetry Monster

A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963)

Once more the windless days are here,

Quiet of autumn, when the year

Halts and looks backward and draws breath

Before it plunges into death.

Silver of mist and gossamers,

Through-shine of noonday’s glassy gold,

Pale blue of skies, where nothing stirs

Save one blanched leaf, weary and old,

That over and over slowly falls

From the mute elm-trees, hanging on air

Like tattered flags along the walls

Of chapels deep in sunlit prayer.

Once more … Within its flawless glass

To-day reflects that other day,

When, under the bracken, on the grass,

We who were lovers happily lay

And hardly spoke, or framed a thought

That was not one with the calm hills

And crystal sky. Ourselves were nought,

Our gusty passions, our burning wills

Dissolved in boundlessness, and we

Were almost bodiless, almost free.

The wind has shattered silver and gold.

Night after night of sparkling cold,

Orion lifts his tangled feet

From where the tossing branches beat

In a fine surf against the sky.

So the trance ended, and we grew

Restless, we knew not how or why;

And there were sudden gusts that blew

Our dreaming banners into storm;

We wore the uncertain crumbling form

Of a brown swirl of windy leaves,

A phantom shape that stirs and heaves

Shuddering from earth, to fall again

With a dry whisper of withered rain.

Last, from the dead and shrunken days

We conjured spring, lighting the blaze

Of burnished tulips in the dark;

And from black frost we struck a spark

Of 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 grown

Emerald shining in the sun,

As light as glass, as firm as stone.

Real once more: for we had passed

Through passion into thought again;

Shaped our desires and made that fast

Which was before a cloudy pain;

Moulded the dimness, fixed, defined

In a fair statue, strong and free,

Twin bodies flaming into mind,

Poised on the brink of ecstasy.

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Poems in English 

• Sonnet 133: Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 132: Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 131: Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 130: My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 12: When I do count the clock that tells the time by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 129: Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• The Eolian Harp by Samuel Taylor Coleridge by Fledermaus
• Sonnet 32: If thou survive my well-contented day by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 31: Thy bosom is endearèd with all hearts by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 30: When to the sessions of sweet silent thought by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 2: When forty winters shall besiege thy brow by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 29: When in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 28: How can I then return in happy plight by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 27: Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 26: Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 25: Let those who are in favour with their stars by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 24: Mine eye hath played the painter and hath stelled by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 23: As an unperfect actor on the stage by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 22: My glass shall not persuade me I am old by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 21: So is it not with me as with that muse by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

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