Aldous Leonard Huxley

White in the moonlight, Wet with dew, We have known the languor

Once more the windless days are here, Quiet of autumn, when the year Halts and looks backward and draws breath

We who are lovers sit by the fire, Cradled warm 'twixt thought and will, Sit and drowse like sleeping dogs

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

(To J.S.) Still life, still life ... the high-lights shine Hard and sharp on the bottles: the wine

I am not one of those who sip, Like a quotidian bock, Cheap idylls from a languid lip

Noonday upon the Alpine meadows Pours its avalanche of Light And blazing flowers: the very shadows

There is a country in my mind, Lovelier than a poet blind Could dream of, who had never known

(From the French of St'phane Mallarm'.) I would immortalize these nymphs: so bright Their sunlit colouring, so airy light,

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,

Her eyes of bright unwinking glaze All imperturbable do not Even make pretences to regard

Sitting on the top of the 'bus, I bite my pipe and look at the sky. Over my shoulder the smoke streams out

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

The eyes of the portraits on the wall Look at me, follow me, Stare incessantly:

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

Instants in the quiet, small sharp stars, Pierce my spirit with a thrust whose speed Baffles even the grasp of time.

All fly - yet who is misanthrope? - The actual men and things that pass Jostling, to wither as the grass

Evenings in trains, When the little black twittering ghosts Along the brims of cuttings,

At your mouth, white and milk-warm sphinx, I taste a strange apocalypse: Your subtle taper finger-tips

I have run where festival was loud With drum and brass among the crowd Of panic revellers, whose cries

I am getting on well with this anecdote, When suddenly I recall The many times I have told it of old,

Shepherd, to yon tall poplars tune your flute: Let them pierce, keenly, subtly shrill, The slow blue rumour of the hill;

Thought is an unseen net wherein our mind Is taken and vainly struggles to be free: Words, that should loose our spirit, do but bind

The stars are golden instants in the deep Flawless expanse of night: the moon is set: The river sleeps, entranced, a smooth cool sleep

A petal drifted loose From a great magnolia bloom, Your face hung in the gloom,

Noon with a depth of shadow beneath the trees Shakes in the heat, quivers to the sound of lutes: Half shaded, half sunlit, a great bowl of fruits

I. UNDER THE TREES. There had been phantoms, pale-remembered shapes Of this and this occasion, sisterly

Fine as the dust of plumy fountains blowing Across the lanterns of a revelling night, The tiny leaves of April's earliest growing

Day after day, At spring's return, I watch my flowers, how they burn

While I have been fumbling over books And thinking about God and the Devil and all, Other young men have been battling with the days

(From the French of Rimbaud). When the child's forehead, full of torments red, Cries out for sleep and its pale host of dreams,

My green aquarium of phantom fish, Goggling in on me through the misty panes; My rotting leaves and fields spongy with rains;

Failing sometimes to understand Why there are folk whose flesh should seem Like carrion puffed with noisome steam,

I had remarked--how sharply one observes When life is disappearing round the curves Of yet another corner, out of sight!--

Darkness had stretched its colour, Deep blue across the pane: No cloud to make night duller,

Oh wind-swept towers, Oh endlessly blossoming trees, White clouds and lucid eyes,