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:
- Вера Павлова – Праздник после праздника
- Mr Anonymous, a life by Raj Arumugam
- English Poetry. Thomas Moore. From “The Odes of Anacreon”. Ode 66. Томас Мур.
- Life by Marvin Bell
- Robert Burns: Composed In Spring:
- Before a Midnight Breaks in Storm by Rudyard Kipling
- Brooklyn Narcissus by Paul Blackburn
- Frankincense and Myrrh poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Merchant by Rabindranath Tagore
- Такахама Кёси – Мацумуси пищит
- Robert Burns: Prologue: Spoken by Mr. Woods on his benefit-night, Monday, 16th April, 1787
- Maudlin by Sylvia Plath
- To The Honble Commodore Hood on His Pardoning a Deserter by Phillis Wheatley
- Joker of the Pack by Shekhar Srinivasan
- Crouchin’ On The Outside by Shel Silverstein
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
- Владимир Степанов – Почему не спят котята?
- Владимир Степанов – Осы
- Владимир Степанов – Ослик
- Владимир Степанов – Облако-овечка
- Владимир Степанов – Неваляшка (Буква Н)
- Владимир Степанов – Наша Армия
- Владимир Степанов – Мышь и кошка
- Владимир Степанов – Мишка (Буква М)
- Владимир Степанов – Масленица
- Владимир Степанов – Лисички
- Владимир Степанов – Кто хозяин
- Владимир Степанов – Кот
- Владимир Степанов – Конкурс красоты
- Владимир Степанов – Как живете? Что жуете?
- Владимир Степанов – Гусь и цыплёнок
- Владимир Степанов – Гном (Буква Г)
- Владимир Степанов – Галочка-считалочка
- Владимир Степанов – Эскимос (Буква Э)
- Владимир Степанов – Енот (Буква Е)
- Владимир Степанов – Двенадцать месяцев
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.