A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963)
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?
A few random poems:
- The Minotaur by Ted Hughes
- Burning Oneself Out
- Ольга Берггольц – Мне не поведать о моей утрате
- Aux Imagistes by William Carlos Williams
- Happy Dust poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- To The Autumn Wind poem – Alfred Austin
- Yell of Pain by Maria Ivana Trevisani Bach
- Николай Гумилев – Лаос
- Addressed To Haydon poem – John Keats poems
- Shivratri The Night Of Shiva While The Procession Passed At Ramesram
- Hoffer by William Wordsworth
- Amarene by Rina Ferrarelli
- “Call Not The Royal Swede Unfortunate” by William Wordsworth
- Claïs by Sappho
- Анатолий Жигулин – Лисенок
External links
Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus
Talking Writing Monster’s Page –
Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh
Poems in English
- Алексей Толстой – Ушкуйник
- Алексей Толстой – Угораздило кофейник
- Алексей Толстой – Ты знаешь, я люблю
- Алексей Толстой – Ты жертва жизненных тревог
- Алексей Толстой – Ты почто, злая кручинушка
- Алексей Толстой – Ты не спрашивай, не распытывай
- Алексей Толстой – Ты любишь в нем лишь первую любовь
- Алексей Толстой – Три побоища
- Алексей Толстой – То было раннею весной
- Алексей Толстой – Темнота и туман застилают мне путь
- Алексей Толстой – Тебя так любят все
- Алексей Толстой – Сватовство
- Алексей Толстой – Стасюлевич и Маркевич
- Алексей Толстой – Средь шумного бала, случайно
- Алексей Толстой – Смеркалось, жаркий день бледнел неуловимо
- Алексей Толстой – Слова для мазурки
- Алексей Толстой – Слепой
- Алексей Толстой – Сижу да гляжу я всe, братцы, вон в эту сторонку
- Алексей Толстой – Шумит на дворе непогода
- Алексей Толстой – С тех пор как я один
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
Search engines:
Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)
Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.
Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees
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.
Parallel Translations of Poetry
The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works
Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894 – 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. He wrote nearly fifty books—both novels and non-fiction works—as well as wide-ranging essays, narratives, and poems.