Part 1

_Selected Poems_

_Selected Poems_

_Aldous Huxley_

_D APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK MCMXXV_

_Printed and made in Great Britain_

CONTENTS.

Page

Song of Poplars 7

The Reef 9

The Flowers 12

The Elms 13

Out of the Window 14

Summer Stillness 15

Inspiration 16

Anniversaries 17

Italy 20

The Alien 22

A Little Memory 23

Waking 24

By the Fire 26

Valedictory 28

Private Property 30

Revelation 31

Minoan Porcelain 32

In Uncertainty to a Lady 33

Crapulous Impression 34

Complaint of a Poet Manqué 35

Social Amenities 36

Topiary 36

On the Bus 37

Points and Lines 38

Panic 38

Stanzas 39

Poem 40

Scenes of the Mind 41

L’Après-Midi d’un Faune 44

Mole 49

Two Realities 52

Quotidian Vision 53

The Mirror 53

Variations on a Theme of Laforgue 54

Philosophy 55

Philoclea in the Forest 55

Books and Thoughts 59

The Higher Sensualism 60

Formal Verses 61

Perils of the Small Hours 62

Return to an Old Home 63

SONG OF POPLARS.

Shepherd, to yon tall poplars tune your flute: Let them pierce, keenly, subtly shrill, The slow blue rumour of the hill; Let the grass cry with an anguish of evening gold, And the great sky be mute.

Then hearken how the poplar trees unfold Their buds, yet close and gummed and blind, In airy leafage of the mind, Rustling in silvery whispers the twin-hued scales That fade not nor grow old.

“Poplars and fountains and you cypress spires Springing in dark and rusty flame, Seek you aught that hath a name? Or say, say: Are you all an upward agony Of undefined desires?

“Say, are you happy in the golden march Of sunlight all across the day? Or do you watch the uncertain way That leads the withering moon on cloudy stairs Over the heaven’s wide arch?

“Is it towards sorrow or towards joy you lift The sharpness of your trembling spears? Or do you seek, through the grey tears That blur the sky, in the heart of the triumphing blue, A deeper, calmer rift?”

So; I have tuned my music to the trees, And there were voices dim below Their shrillness, voices swelling slow In the blue murmur of hills, and a golden cry And then vast silences.

THE REEF.

My green aquarium of phantom fish, Goggling in on me through the misty panes; My rotting leaves and fields spongy with rains; My few clear quiet autumn days--I wish

I could leave all, clearness and mistiness; Sodden or goldenly crystal, all too still. Yes, and I too rot with the leaves that fill The hollows in the woods; I am grown less

Than human, listless, aimless as the green Idiot fishes of my aquarium, Who loiter down their dim tunnels and come And look at me and drift away, nought seen

Or understood, but only glazedly Reflected. Upwards, upwards through the shadows, Through the lush sponginess of deep-sea meadows Where hare-lipped monsters batten, let me ply

Winged fins, bursting this matrix dark to find Jewels and movement, mintage of sunlight Scattered largely by the profuse wind, And gulfs of blue brightness, too deep for sight.

Free, newly born, on roads of music and air Speeding and singing, I shall seek the place Where all the shining threads of water race, Drawn in green ropes and foamy meshes. There,

On the red fretted ramparts of a tower Of coral rooted in the depths, shall break An endless sequence of joy and speed and power: Green shall shatter to foam; flake with white flake

Shall create an instant’s shining constellation Upon the blue; and all the air shall be Full of a million wings that swift and free Laugh in the sun, all power and strong elation.

Yes, I shall seek that reef, which is beyond All isles however magically sleeping In tideless seas, uncharted and unconned Save by blind eyes: beyond the laughter and weeping

That brood like a cloud over the lands of men. Movement, passion of colour and pure wings, Curving to cut like knives--these are the things I search for:--passion beyond the ken Of our foiled violences, and, more swift Than any blow which man aims against time, The invulnerable, motion that shall rift All dimness with the lightning of a rhyme,

Or note, or colour. And the body shall be Quick as the mind; and will shall find release From bondage to brute things; and joyously Soul, will and body, in the strength of triune peace,

Shall live the perfect grace of power unwasted. And love consummate, marvellously blending Passion and reverence in a single spring Of quickening force, till now never yet tasted,

But ever ceaselessly thirsted for, shall crown The new life with its ageless starry fire. I go to seek that reef, far down, far down Below the edge of everyday’s desire,

Beyond the magical islands, where of old I was content, dreaming, to give the lie To misery. They were all strong and bold That thither came; and shall I dare to try?

THE FLOWERS.

Day after day, At spring’s return, I watch my flowers, how they burn Their lives away.

The candle crocus And daffodil gold Drink fire of the sunshine-- Quickly cold.

And the proud tulip-- How red he glows!-- Is quenched ere summer Can kindle the rose.

Purple as the innermost Core of a sinking flame, Deep in the leaves the violets smoulder To the dust whence they came.

Day after day At spring’s return, I watch my flowers, how they burn Their lives away, Day after day....

THE ELMS.

Fine as the dust of plumy fountains blowing Across the lanterns of a revelling night, The tiny leaves of April’s earliest growing Powder the trees--so vaporously light, They seem to float, billows of emerald foam Blown by the South on its bright airy tide, Seeming less trees than things beatified, Come from the world of thought which was their home.

For a while only. Rooted strong and fast, Soon will they lift towards the summer sky Their mountain-mass of clotted greenery. Their immaterial season quickly past, They grow opaque, and therefore needs must die, Since every earth to earth returns at last.

OUT OF THE WINDOW.

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 their Grand Express Folk yawn away a province through, With nothing to think of, nothing to do, Nothing even to look at--never a “view” In this damned wilderness. But I look out of the window and find Much to satisfy the mind. Mark how the furrows, formed and wheeled In a motion orderly and staid, Sweep, as we pass, across the field Like a drilled army on parade. And here’s a market-garden, barred With stripe on stripe of varied greens.... Bright potatoes, flower starred, And the opacous colour of beans. Each line deliberately swings Towards me, till I see a straight Green avenue to the heart of things, The glimpse of a sudden opened gate Piercing the adverse walls of fate.... A moment only, and then, fast, fast, The gate swings to, the avenue closes; Fate laughs, and once more interposes Its barriers. The train has passed.

SUMMER STILLNESS.

The stars are golden instants in the deep Flawless expanse of night: the moon is set: The river sleeps, entranced, a smooth cool sleep Seeming so motionless that I forget The hollow booming bridges, where it slides, Dark with the sad looks that it bears along, Towards a sea whose unreturning tides Ravish the sighted ships and the sailors’ song.

INSPIRATION.

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 of sudden blue. Dimming the sun-drunk petals, Bright even unto pain, The grasshopper flashes, settles, And then is quenched again.

ANNIVERSARIES.

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.

ITALY.

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 Of heavenly sleep, and seem yet warm From some pure body newly risen; Where matter is no more a prison, But freedom for the soul to know Its native beauty. For things glow There with an inward truth and are All fire and colour like a star. And in that land are domes and towers That hang as light and bright as flowers Upon the sky, and seem a birth Rather of air than solid earth.

Sometimes I dream that walking there In the green shade, all unaware At a new turn of the golden glade, I shall see her, and as though afraid Shall halt a moment and almost fall For passing faintness, like a man Who feels the sudden spirit of Pan Brimming his narrow soul with all The illimitable world. And she, Turning her head, will let me see The first sharp dawn of her surprise Turning to welcome in her eyes. And I shall come and take my lover And looking on her re-discover All her beauty:--her dark hair And the little ears beneath it, where Roses of lucid shadow sleep; Her brooding mouth, and in the deep Wells of her eyes reflected stars.

Oh, the imperishable things That hands and lips as well as words Shall speak! Oh movement of white wings, Oh wheeling galaxies of birds!

THE ALIEN.

A petal drifted loose From a great magnolia bloom, Your face hung in the gloom, Floating, white and close.

We seemed alone: but another Bent o’er you with lips of flame, Unknown, without a name, Hated, and yet my brother.

Your one short moan of pain Was an exorcising spell: The devil flew back to hell; We were alone again.

A LITTLE MEMORY.

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 kissed the hair, Gently, ah, gently: And you were

Mistress and mother When on your breast I lay so safely And could rest.

WAKING.

Darkness had stretched its colour, Deep blue across the pane: No cloud to make night duller, No moon with its tarnish stain; But only here and there a star, One sharp point of frosty fire, Hanging infinitely far In mockery of our life and death And all our small desire.

Now in this hour of waking From under brows of stone, A new pale day is breaking And the deep night is gone. Sordid now, and mean and small The daylight world is seen again, With only the veils of mist that fall Deaf and muffling over all To hide its ugliness and pain.

But to-day this dawn of meanness Shines in my eyes, as when The new world’s brightness and cleanness Broke on the first of men. For the light that shows the huddled things Of this close-pressing earth, Shines also on your face and brings All its dear beauty back to me In a new miracle of birth.

I see you asleep and unpassioned, White-faced in the dusk of your hair-- Your beauty so fleetingly fashioned That it filled me once with despair To look on its exquisite transience And think that our love and thought and laughter Puff out with the death of our flickering sense, While we pass ever on and away Towards some blank hereafter.

But now I am happy, knowing That swift time is our friend, And that our love’s passionate glowing, Though it turn ash in the end, Is a rose of fire that must blossom its way Through temporal stuff, nor else could be More than a nothing. Into day The boundless spaces of night contract And in your opening eyes I see Night born in day, in time eternity.

BY THE FIRE.

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 the sound of a far-off falling stream Of threaded water blown to steam, Grey ghost in the mountain world of grey. Vapours blue as distance rise Between the hissing logs that show A glimpse of rosy heat below; And candles watch with tireless eyes While we sit drowsing here. I know, Dimly, that there exists a world, That there is time perhaps, and space Other and wider than this place, Where at the fireside drowsily curled We hear the whisper and watch the flame Burn blinkless and inscrutable. And then I know those other names That through my brain from cell to cell Echo--reverberated shout Of waiters mournful along corridors: But nobody carries the orders out, And the names (dear friends, your name and yours) Evoke no sign. But here I sit On the wide hearth, and there are you: That is enough and only true. The world and the friends that lived in it Are shadows: you alone remain Real in this drowsing room, Full of the whispers of distant rain And candles staring into the gloom.

VALEDICTORY.

I had remarked--how sharply one observes When life is disappearing round the curves Of yet another corner, out of sight!-- I had remarked when it was “good luck” and “good night” And “a good journey to you,” on her face Certain enigmas penned in the hieroglyphs Of that half frown and queer fixed smile and trace Of clouded thought in those brown eyes, Always so happily clear of hows and ifs-- My poor bleared mind!--and haunting whys.

There I stood, holding her farewell hand, (Pressing my life and soul and all The world to one good-bye, till, small And smaller pressed, why there I’d stand Dead when they vanished with the sight of her). And I saw that she had grown aware, Queer puzzled face! of other things Beyond the present and her own young speed, Of yesterday and what new days might breed Monstrously when the future brings A charger with your late-lamented head: Aware of other people’s lives and will, Aware, perhaps, aware even of me.... The joyous hope of it! But still I pitied her; for it was sad to see A goddess shorn of her divinity. In the midst of her speed she had made pause, And doubts with all their threat of claws, Outstripped till now by her unconsciousness, Had seized on her; she was proved mortal now. “Live, only live? For you were meant Never to know a thought’s distress, But a long glad astonishment At the world’s beauty and your own. The pity of you, goddess, grown Perplexed and mortal!” Yet ... yet ... can it be That she is aware, perhaps, even of me?

And life recedes, recedes; the curve is bare, My handkerchief flutters blankly in the air; And the question rumbles in the void: Was she aware, was she after all aware?

PRIVATE PROPERTY.

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 heliotrope Pursues the sun’s ascent or slope; For the sun dreams there, and no time is or was.

Like fauns embossed in our domain, We look abroad, and our calm eyes Mark how the goatish gods of pain Revel; and if by grim surprise They break into our paradise, Patient we build its beauty up again.

REVELATION.

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; yet my spirit drinks

Pure knowledge from this tainted well, And now hears voices yet unheard Within it, and without it sees That world of which the poets tell Their vision in the stammered word Of those that wake from piercing ecstasies.

MINOAN PORCELAIN.

Her eyes of bright unwinking glaze All imperturbable do not Even make pretences to regard The jutting 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 no shamefaced delays Will clog fulfilment, nor retard Full payment of the Cyprian’s praise Down to the last remorseful jot. Hail priestess of we know not what Strange cult of Mycenean days!

IN UNCERTAINTY TO A LADY.

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?

CRAPULOUS IMPRESSION.

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!”

COMPLAINT OF A POET MANQUÉ.

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 comes Salome.”

I looked in the dirty gilt-edged glass, And, oh Salome! there I was-- Positively jewelled, half a vampire, With the soul in my eyes hanging dizzily Like the gatherer of proverbial samphire Over the brink of the crag of sense, Looking down from perilous eminence Into a gulf of windy night. And there’s straw in my tempestuous hair, And I’m not a poet: but never despair! I’ll madly live the poems I shall never write.

SOCIAL AMENITIES.

I am getting on well with this anecdote, When suddenly I recall The many times I have told it of old, And all the worked-up phrases, and the dying fall Of voice, well timed in the crisis, the note Of mock-heroic ingeniously struck-- The whole thing sticks in my throat, And my face all tingles and pricks with shame For myself and my hearers. These are the social pleasures, my God! But I finish the story triumphantly all the same.

TOPIARY.

Failing sometimes to understand Why there are folk whose flesh should seem Like carrion puffed with noisome steam, Fly-blown to the eye that looks on it, Fly-blown to the touch of a hand; Why there are men without any legs, Whizzing along on little trollies With long long arms like apes’: Failing to see why God the Topiarist Should train and carve and twist Men’s bodies into such fantastic shapes: Yes, failing to see the point of it all, I sometimes wish That I were a fabulous thing in a fool’s mind, Or, at the ocean bottom, in a world that is deaf and blind, Very remote and happy, a great goggling fish.

ON THE ’BUS.

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 streams out In a vanishing skein of grey. Crash and bump ... my poor bruised body! I am a harp of twittering strings, An elegant instrument, but infinitely second-hand, And if I have not got phthisis it is only an accident. Droll phenomena!

POINTS AND LINES.

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 mirrored across me; Those stabbing points of the sky Turned to a thread of shaken silver, A long fine thread.

PANIC.