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, 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.

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Poems in English 

• Time’s Defence poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• Through Liberty To Light poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• Three Sonnets Written In Mid-Channel poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• Though All The World poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• The Wind Speaks poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• The White Pall Of Peace poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• The Spring-Time, O The Spring–Time poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• “`The smiling slopes with olive groves bedecked” poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• The Silent Muse poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• The Season poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• The Reply Of Q. Horatius Flaccus To A Roman “Round-Robin” poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• The Poet And The Muse poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• The Passing Of The Primroses poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• The Passing Of The Century poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• The Passing Of Spring poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• The Owl And The Lark poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• The Old Land And The Young Land poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• The Lover’s Song poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• The Last Redoubt poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• “The lark confinèd in his cage” poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin

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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.

 

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