September
A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) Spring is past and over these many days, Spring and summer. The leaves of September droop, Yellowing afid all but dead on the patient trees. Nor is there any hope in me. I walk Slowly homeward. Night is as empty and dark Behind my eyes as […]
Scenes Of The Mind
A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) I have run where festival was loud With drum and brass among the crowd Of panic revellers, whose cries Affront the quiet of the skies; Whose dancing lights contract the deep Infinity of night and sleep To a narrow turmoil of troubled fire. And I have […]
Revelation
A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) At your mouth, white and milk-warm sphinx, I taste a strange apocalypse: Your subtle taper finger-tips Weave me new heavens, yet, methinks, I know the wiles and each iynx That brought me passionate to your lips: I know you bare as laughter strips Your charnel beauty; […]
Return From Business
A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) Evenings in trains, When the little black twittering ghosts Along the brims of cuttings, Against the luminous sky, Interrupt with their hurrying rumour every thought Save that one is young and setting, Headlong westering, And there is no recapture. Poetry Monster – Home […]
Private Property
A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) All fly–yet who is misanthrope?– The actual men and things that pass Jostling, to wither as the grass So soon: and (be it heaven’s hope, Or poetry’s kaleidoscope, Or love or wine, at feast, at mass) Each owns a paradise of glass Where never a yearning […]
Points And Lines
A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) Instants in the quiet, small sharp stars, Pierce my spirit with a thrust whose speed Baffles even the grasp of time. Oh that I might reflect them As swiftly, as keenly as they shine. But I am a pool of waters, summer-still, And the stars are […]
Poem
A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) Books and a coloured skein of thoughts were mine; And magic words lay ripening in my soul Till their much-whispered music turned a wine Whose subtlest power was all in my control. These things were mine, and they were real for me As lips and darling […]
Panic
A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) The eyes of the portraits on the wall Look at me, follow me, Stare incessantly: I take it their glance means nothing at all? –Clearly, oh clearly! Nothing at all … Out in the gardens by the lake The sleeping peacocks suddenly wake; Out in the […]
Out Of The Window
A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) In the middle of countries, far from hills and sea, Are the little places one passes by in trains And never stops at; where the skies extend Uninterrupted, and the level plains Stretch green and yellow and green without an end. And behind the glass of […]
On The Bus
A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) Sitting on the top of the ‘bus, I bite my pipe and look at the sky. Over my shoulder the smoke streams out And my life with it. “Conservation of energy,” you say. But I burn, I tell you, I burn; And the smoke of me […]
Minoan Porcelain
A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) Her eyes of bright unwinking glaze All imperturbable do not Even make pretences to regard The justing absence of her stays, Where many a Tyrian gallipot Excites desire with spilth of nard. The bistred rims above the fard Of cheeks as red as bergamot Attest that […]
Love Song
A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) Dear absurd child–too dear to my cost I’ve found– God made your soul for pleasure, not for use: It cleaves no way, but angled broad obtuse, Impinges with a slabby-bellied sound Full upon life, and on the rind of things Rubs its sleek self and utters […]
Lapr S Midi Dun Faune
A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) (From the French of Stéphane Mallarmé.) I would immortalize these nymphs: so bright Their sunlit colouring, so airy light, It floats like drowsing down. Loved I a dream? My doubts, born of oblivious darkness, seem A subtle tracery of branches grown The tree’s true self–proving that […]
Italy
A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) There is a country in my mind, Lovelier than a poet blind Could dream of, who had never known This world of drought and dust and stone In all its ugliness: a place Full of an all but human grace; Whose dells retain the printed form […]
Inspiration
A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) Noonday upon the Alpine meadows Pours its avalanche of Light And blazing flowers: the very shadows Translucent 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 grasses Leaps a lightning […]
In Uncertainty To A Lady
A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) I am not one of those who sip, Like a quotidian bock, Cheap idylls from a languid lip Prepared to yawn or mock. I wait the indubitable word, The great Unconscious Cue. Has it been spoken and unheard? Spoken, perhaps, by you …? Poetry […]
Doors Of The Temple
A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) Many are the doors of the spirit that lead Into the inmost shrine: And I count the gates of the temple divine, Since the god of the place is God indeed. And these are the gates that God decreed Should lead to his house: – kisses […]
Darkness
A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) My close-walled soul has never known That innermost darkness, dazzling sight, Like the blind point, whence the visions spring In the core of the gazer’s chrysolite… The mystic darkness that laps God’s throne In a splendour beyond imagining, So passing bright. But the many twisted darknesses […]
Crapulous Impression
A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) (To J.S.) Still life, still life … the high-lights shine Hard and sharp on the bottles: the wine Stands firmly solid in the glasses, Smooth yellow ice, through which there passes The lamp’s bright pencil of down-struck light. The fruits metallically gleam, Globey in their heaped-up […]
Complaint Of A Poet Manqu
A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) We judge by appearance merely: If I can’t think strangely, I can at least look queerly. So I grew the hair so long on my head That my mother wouldn’t know me, Till a woman in a night-club said, As I was passing by, “Hullo, here […]
By The Fire
A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) We who are lovers sit by the fire, Cradled warm ‘twixt thought and will, Sit and drowse like sleeping dogs In the equipoise of all desire, Sit and listen to the still Small hiss and whisper of green logs That burn away, that burn away With […]
Books And Thoughts
A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) Old ghosts that death forgot to ferry Across the Lethe of the years – These are my friends, and at their tears I weep and with their mirth am merry. On a high tower, whose battlements Give me all heaven at a glance, I lie long […]
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, […]
A Melody By Scarlatti
A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) HOW clear under the trees, How softly the music flows, Rippling from one still pool to another Into the lake of silence. Poetry Monster – Home A few random poems: [arpw limit=”15″] External links Bat’s Poetry Page – more […]
A Little Memory
A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) White in the moonlight, Wet with dew, We have known the languor Of being two. We have been weary As 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 forehead I […]
The Storm
A poem by Alcaeus of Mytilene (c. 625/620 – c. 580 BC) Now here, now there, the wild waves sweep, Whilst we, betwixt them o’er the deep, In shatter’d tempest-beaten bark, With laboring ropes are onward driven, The billows dashing o’er our dark Upheaved deck–in tatters riven Our sails–whose yawning rents between The raging sea and […]
The State
A poem by Alcaeus of Mytilene (c. 625/620 – c. 580 BC) What constitutes a State? Not high-raised battlement, or labored mound, Thick wall or moated gate; Not cities fair, with spires and turrets crown’d; No:–Men, high-minded men, With powers as far above dull brutes endued In forest, brake or den, As beasts excel cold rocks […]
The Poor Fisherman
A poem by Alcaeus of Mytilene (c. 625/620 – c. 580 BC) The fisher Diotimus had, at sea And shore, the same abode of poverty– His trusty boat;–and when his days were spent, Therein self-rowed to ruthless Dis he went; For that, which did through life his woes beguile, Supplied the old man with a funeral […]
The Palace
A poem by Alcaeus of Mytilene (c. 625/620 – c. 580 BC) From roof to roof the spacious palace halls Glitter with war’s array; With burnished metal clad, the lofty walls Beam like the bright noonday. There white-plumed helmets hang from many a nail, Above, in threatening row; Steel-garnished tunics and broad coats of mail Spread […]
Storm
A poem by Alcaeus of Mytilene (c. 625/620 – c. 580 BC) Now here, now there, the wild waves sweep, Whilst we, betwixt them o’er the deep, In shatter’d tempest-beaten bark, With laboring ropes are onward driven, The billows dashing o’er our dark Upheaved deck–in tatters riven Our sails–whose yawning rents between The raging sea and […]
Poor Fisherman
A poem by Alcaeus of Mytilene (c. 625/620 – c. 580 BC) The fisher Diotimus had, at sea And shore, the same abode of poverty– His trusty boat;–and when his days were spent, Therein self-rowed to ruthless Dis he went; For that, which did through life his woes beguile, Supplied the old man with a funeral […]
Invitation
A poem by Alcaeus of Mytilene (c. 625/620 – c. 580 BC) Why wait we for the torches’ lights? Now let us drink while day invites. In mighty flagons hither bring The deep-red blood of many a vine, That we may largely quaff, and sing The praises of the god of wine, The son of Jove […]
A Banquet Song
A poem by Alcaeus of Mytilene (c. 625/620 – c. 580 BC) The rain of Zeus descends, and from high heaven A storm is driven: And on the running water-brooks the cold Lays icy hold; Then up: beat down the winter; make the fire Blaze high and higher; Mix wine as sweet as honey of the […]