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 bowl,
And there are faces against the night
Of the outer room–faces that seem
Part of this still, still life … they’ve lost their soul.
And amongst these frozen faces you smiled,
Surprised, surprisingly, like a child:
And out of the frozen welter of sound
Your voice came quietly, quietly.
“What about God?” you said. “I have found
Much to be said for Totality.
All, I take it, is God: God’s all–
This bottle, for instance …” I recall,
Dimly, that you took God by the neck–
God-in-the-bottle–and pushed Him across:
But I, without a moment’s loss
Moved God-in-the-salt in front and shouted: “Check!”
A few random poems:
- Butterfly by Ramesh Anand
- Наум Коржавин – О Господи! Как я хочу умереть
- Why the Young Men Are So Ugly by Tony Hoagland
- first_verse.html
- Love and Law by Vachel Lindsay
- Ольга Берггольц – Анна Ахматова в 1941 году в Ленинграде
- Lines By Taj Mahomed
- Sonnet IX by William Shakespeare
- Scots Prologue for Mr. Sutherland by Robert Burns
- Низами Гянджеви – Другим знавала ты меня
- Epitaph for Gavin Hamilton, Esq. by Robert Burns
- The Common A-Took In by William Barnes
- The Travail Of Passion by William Butler Yeats
- I don’t want to have you by Vinko Kalinic
- A Winter Eden by Robert Frost
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
- Harrow-on-the-Hill poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Guilt poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Felixstowe, or The Last of Her Order poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Executive poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Dilton Marsh Halt poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Diary of a Church Mouse poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Devonshire Street W.1 poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Death In Leamington poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Dawlish poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Cornish Cliffs poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Christmas poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Business Girls poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Back From Australia poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- An Edwardian Sunday, Broomhill, Sheffield poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Subaltern’s Love Song poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Shropshire Lad poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Bay In Anglesey poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Free the Holy Land — a poem about Palestine
- Sepukku
- Did Shakespeare write his own plays and poems?
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.