A Little Memory poem – Aldous Huxley poems | Poetry Monster

A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) 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 […]

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 […]

Revelation

A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) 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; […]

Return From Business

A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) Evenings in trains, When the little black twittering ghosts Along the brims of cuttings, Against the luminous sky, Interrupt with their hurrying rumour every thought Save that one is young and setting, Headlong westering, And there is no recapture. Poetry Monster – Home […]

Private Property

A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) 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 […]

Points And Lines

A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) 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 […]

Poem

A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) 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 Whose subtlest power was all in my control. These things were mine, and they were real for me As lips and darling […]

Panic

A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) The eyes of the portraits on the wall Look at me, follow me, Stare incessantly: I take it their glance means nothing at all? –Clearly, oh clearly! Nothing at all … Out in the gardens by the lake The sleeping peacocks suddenly wake; Out in the […]

Out Of The Window

A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) 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 […]

On The Bus

A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) 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 […]

Minoan Porcelain

A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) Her eyes of bright unwinking glaze All imperturbable do not Even make pretences to regard The justing 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 […]

Love Song

A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) 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, Impinges with a slabby-bellied sound Full upon life, and on the rind of things Rubs its sleek self and utters […]

Lapr S Midi Dun Faune

A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) (From the French of Stéphane Mallarmé.) I would immortalize these nymphs: so bright Their sunlit colouring, so airy light, It floats like drowsing down. Loved I a dream? My doubts, born of oblivious darkness, seem A subtle tracery of branches grown The tree’s true self–proving that […]

Italy

A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) 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 […]

Inspiration

A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) 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 […]

In Uncertainty To A Lady

A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) 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 …? Poetry […]

Doors Of The Temple

A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) Many are the doors of the spirit that lead Into the inmost shrine: And I count the gates of the temple divine, Since the god of the place is God indeed. And these are the gates that God decreed Should lead to his house: – kisses […]

Darkness

A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) My close-walled soul has never known That innermost darkness, dazzling sight, Like the blind point, whence the visions spring In the core of the gazer’s chrysolite… The mystic darkness that laps God’s throne In a splendour beyond imagining, So passing bright. But the many twisted darknesses […]

Crapulous Impression

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 […]

Complaint Of A Poet Manqu

A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) 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 […]

By The Fire

A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) 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 […]

Books And Thoughts

A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) Old ghosts that death forgot to ferry Across the Lethe of the years – These are my friends, and at their tears I weep and with their mirth am merry. On a high tower, whose battlements Give me all heaven at a glance, I lie long […]

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, […]

A Melody By Scarlatti

A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) HOW clear under the trees, How softly the music flows, Rippling from one still pool to another Into the lake of silence. Poetry Monster – Home A few random poems:   External links Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry […]

A Little Memory

A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) 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 […]

The Essay on Liberty by Abraham Cowley

OF LIBERTY The liberty of a people consists in being governed by laws which they have made themselves, under whatsoever form it be of government; the liberty of a private man in being master of his own time and actions, as far as may consist with the laws of God and of his country.  Of this […]

To A Young Lady. On Her Recovery From A Fever by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Why need I say, Louisa dear! How glad I am to see you here, A lovely convalescent; Risen from the bed of pain and fear, And feverish heat incessant. The sunny showers, the dappled sky, The little birds that warble high, Their vernal loves commencing, Will better welcome you than I With their sweet influencing. […]

Written In Early Youth. The Time,–An Autumnal Evening by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

O thou wild fancy, check thy wing! No more Those thin white flakes, those purple clouds explore! Nor there with happy spirits speed thy light Bathed in rich amber-glowing floods of light; Nor in yon gleam, where slow descends the day, With western peasants hail the morning ray! Ah! rather bid the perished pleasures move, […]

Fire, Famine, And Slaughter : A War Eclogue by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The Scene a desolate Tract in la Vendee. Famine is discovered lying on the ground; to her enter Fire and Slaughter. Fam. Sister! sisters! who sent you here? Slau. [to Fire.] I will whisper it in her ear. Fire. No! no! no! Spirits hear what spirits tell: ‘Twill make a holiday in Hell. No! no! […]

Fancy In Nubibus, Or The Poet In The Clouds by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

O! it is pleasant with a heart at ease, Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies, To make the shifting clouds be what you please, Or let the easily persuaded eyes Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould Of a friend’s fancy; or with head bent low And cheek aslant see rivers flow of […]

Epitaph On An Infant. by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Its balmy lips the infant blest Relaxing from its mother’s breast, How sweet it heaves the happy sigh Of innocent satiety! And such my infant’s latest sigh! Oh tell, rude stone! the passer by, That here the pretty babe doth lie, Death sang to sleep with Lullaby. ————— The End And that’s the End of […]

To A Young Lady. On Her Recovery From A Fever by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Why need I say, Louisa dear! How glad I am to see you here, A lovely convalescent; Risen from the bed of pain and fear, And feverish heat incessant. The sunny showers, the dappled sky, The little birds that warble high, Their vernal loves commencing, Will better welcome you than I With their sweet influencing. […]

Written In Early Youth. The Time,–An Autumnal Evening by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

O thou wild fancy, check thy wing! No more Those thin white flakes, those purple clouds explore! Nor there with happy spirits speed thy light Bathed in rich amber-glowing floods of light; Nor in yon gleam, where slow descends the day, With western peasants hail the morning ray! Ah! rather bid the perished pleasures move, […]

The Lime-tree Bower my Prison by Samuel Coleridge

Well, they are gone, and here must I remain, This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost Beauties and feelings, such as would have been Most sweet to my remembrance even when age Had dimm’d mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile, Friends, whom I never more may meet again, On springy heath, along the hill-top […]

Psyche by Samuel Coleridge

The butterfly the ancient Grecians made The soul’s fair emblem, and its only name– But of the soul, escaped the slavish trade Of mortal life !–For in this earthly frame Ours is the reptile’s lot, much toil, much blame, Manifold motions making little speed, And to deform and kill the things whereon we feed. ————— […]

Brockley Coomb by Samuel Coleridge

Lines composed while climbing the left ascent of Brockley Coomb, May 1795 With many a pause and oft reverted eye I climb the Coomb’s ascent: sweet songsters near Warble in shade their wild-wood melody: Far off the unvarying Cuckoo soothes my ear. Up scour the startling stragglers of the flock That on green plots o’er […]

As some vast Tropic tree, itself a wood (fragment) by Samuel Coleridge

As some vast Tropic tree, itself a wood, That crests its Head with clouds, beneath the flood Feeds its deep roots, and with the bulging flank Of its wide base controls the fronting bank, (By the slant current’s pressure scoop’d away The fronting bank becomes a foam-piled bay) High in the Fork the uncouth Idol […]

Constancy To An Ideal Object by Samuel Coleridge

Since all, that beat about in Nature’s range, Or veer or vanish ; why should’st thou remain The only constant in a world of change, O yearning THOUGHT ! that liv’st but in the brain ? Call to the HOURS, that in the distance play, The faery people of the future day– — Fond THOUGHT […]

A Tombless Epitaph by Samuel Coleridge

‘Tis true, Idoloclastes Satyrane ! (So call him, for so mingling blame with praise, And smiles with anxious looks, his earliest friends, Masking his birth-name, wont to character His wild-wood fancy and impetuous zeal,) ‘Tis true that, passionate for ancient truths, And honouring with religious love the Great Of elder times, he hated to excess, […]