Anniversaries

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 

• Poor Mailie’s Elegy by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• Poem on Sensibility by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• Pegasus at Wanlockhead by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• Paraphrase of the First Psalm by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• One Night as I did Wander by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• On the late Captain Grose’s Peregrinations by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• On the Death of Robert Dundas, Esq., of Arniston by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• On the Death of John M’Leod, Esq. by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• On the Birth of a Posthumous Child by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• On Tam the Chapman by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• On seeing Mrs. Kemble in Yarico by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• On Scaring some Water-Fowl in Lock Turit by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• On Glenriddell’s Fox breaking his chain: A Fragment by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• On Elphinstone’s Translation of Martial’s Epigrams by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• On Chloris requesting a sprig of blossom’d thorn by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• Oh Wert Thou In The Cauld Blast by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• Ode, Sacred to the Memory of Mrs. Oswald of Auchencruive by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• Ode on the Departed Regency Bill by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• Ode for General Washington’s Birthday by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• Note to Mr. Renton of Lamerton by Robert Burns by Robert Burns

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Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.

 

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