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.
A few random poems:
- Come up from the Fields, Father. by Walt Whitman
- The Eagle and the Dove by William Wordsworth
- Юргис Балтрушайтис – Средь бега дней моих порой
- June poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Those seven days by Vinaya Kumar Hanumanthappa
- Star-Gazers by William Wordsworth
- The Rape of the Lock poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Apologia Pro Poemate Meo by Wilfred Owen
- The Wife Of Usher’s Well poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Learn
- Four Corners by Michelle Bonczek Evory
- Anthem For Good Fryday by William Strode
- The Night
- Tip-Toe-ing by Mahak Raithatha S
- In Memory Of The Late John Thornton, Esq. by William Cowper
External links
Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus
Talking Writing Monster’s Page –
Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh
Poems in English
- The Epic Menageries by MB Moshe
- The Cup of Life by Mike Yuan
- The Colored Balloon by Mike Yuan
- The Cinnamon Peeler by Michael Ondaatje
- State Fair Time by Michael S Wilson
- Speaking To You (From Rock Bottom) by Michael Ondaatje
- Soulmating by Mike Yuan
- Since That Summer by Mike Yuan
- Searching by Mike Yuan
- Scotland by MB Moshe
- Ruined World by Michael Yuan
- Ready for Retirement by Mike Yuan
- Promise Ya by Miraj Patel
- Picking Cherries by Mike Yuan
- Outset by Mike Yuan
- Obdurant men, the worst of the abstinant by Miles
- Notes For The Legend Of Salad Woman by Michael Ondaatje
- Not even a child by Miles
- Nailing by Mike Yuan
- My Ink by Mike Yuan
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
Search engines:
Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)
Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.
Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees
Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.
Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.
Parallel Translations of Poetry
The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works
Alcaeus of Mytilene ( c. 625/620 – c. 580 Before Christ) ] was a lyric poet from the Greek island of Lesbos who is credited with inventing the Alcaic stanza. He was included in the canonical list of nine lyric poets by the scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria.