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 found my heart’s desire

In beechen caverns that autumn fills

With the blue shadowiness of distant hills;

Whose luminous grey pillars bear

The stooping sky: calm is the air,

Nor any sound is heard to mar

That crystal silence–as from far,

Far off a man may see

The busy world all utterly

Hushed as an old memorial scene.

Long evenings I have sat and been

Strangely content, while in my hands

I held a wealth of coloured strands,

Shimmering plaits of silk and skeins

Of soft bright wool. Each colour drains

New life at the lamp’s round pool of gold;

Each sinks again when I withhold

The quickening radiance, to a wan

And shadowy oblivion

Of what it was. And in my mind

Beauty or sudden love has shined

And wakened colour in what was dead

And turned to gold the sullen lead

Of mean desires and everyday’s

Poor thoughts and customary ways.

Sometimes in lands where mountains throw

Their silent spell on all below,

Drawing a magic circle wide

About their feet on every side,

Robbed of all speech and thought and act,

I have seen God in the cataract.

In falling water and in flame,

Never at rest, yet still the same,

God shows himself. And I have known

The swift fire frozen into stone,

And water frozen changelessly

Into the death of gems. And I

Long sitting by the thunderous mill

Have seen the headlong wheel made still,

And in the silence that ensued

Have known the endless solitude

Of being dead and utterly nought.

Inhabitant of mine own thought,

I look abroad, and all I see

Is my creation, made for me:

Along my thread of life are pearled

The moments that make up the world.

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Poems in English 

• Yarrow Revisited by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Written With A Slate Pencil On A Stone, On The Side Of The Mountain Of Black Comb by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Written Upon A Blank Leaf In “The Complete Angler.” by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Written In Very Early Youth by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Written in March by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Written in London. September, 1802 by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Written In Germany On One Of The Coldest Days Of The Century by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Written In A Blank Leaf Of Macpherson’s Ossian by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• With Ships the Sea was Sprinkled Far and Nigh by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• With How Sad Steps, O Moon, Thou Climb’st the Sky by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Who Fancied What A Pretty Sight by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Where Lies The Land To Which Yon Ship Must Go? by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• When To The Attractions Of The Busy World by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• “When I Have Borne In Memory” by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Weak Is The Will Of Man, His Judgement Blind by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Water-Fowl Observed Frequently Over The Lakes Of Rydal And Grasmere by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Waldenses by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• View From The Top Of Black Comb by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Vernal Ode by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Vaudracour And Julia by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth

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