Complete Works of Aldous Huxley

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by Aldous Huxley

Like a pure angel, thinking colour and form,

  Hardening to rage in a flame of chiselled stone,

  Spilling my love like sunlight, golden and warm

  On noonday flowers, speaking the song of birds

  Among the branches, whispering the fall of rain,

  Beyond all thought, past action and past words,

  I would live in beauty, free from self and pain.

  POEM

  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 eyes and a warm breast:

  For I could love a phrase, a melody,

  Like a fair woman, worshipped and possessed.

  I scorned all fire that outward of the eyes

  Could kindle passion; scorned, yet was afraid;

  Feared, and yet envied those more deeply wise

  Who saw the bright earth beckon and obeyed.

  But a time came when, turning full of hate

  And weariness from my remembered themes,

  I wished my poet’s pipe could modulate

  Beauty more palpable than words and dreams.

  All loveliness with which an act informs

  The dim uncertain chaos of desire

  Is mine to-day; it touches me, it warms

  Body and spirit with its outward fire.

  I am mine no more: I have become a part

  Of that great earth that draws a breath and stirs

  To meet the spring. But I could wish my heart

  Were still a winter of frosty gossamers.

  SCENES OF THE MIND

  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 found my heart’s desire

  In beechen caverns that autumn fills

  With the blue shadowiness of distant hills;

  Whose luminous grey pillars bear

  The stooping sky: calm is the air,

  Nor any sound is heard to mar

  That crystal silence — as from far,

  Far off a man may see

  The busy world all utterly

  Hushed as an old memorial scene.

  Long evenings I have sat and been

  Strangely content, while in my hands

  I held a wealth of coloured strands,

  Shimmering plaits of silk and skeins

  Of soft bright wool. Each colour drains

  New life at the lamp’s round pool of gold;

  Each sinks again when I withhold

  The quickening radiance, to a wan

  And shadowy oblivion

  Of what it was. And in my mind

  Beauty or sudden love has shined

  And wakened colour in what was dead

  And turned to gold the sullen lead

  Of mean desires and everyday’s

  Poor thoughts and customary ways.

  Sometimes in lands where mountains throw

  Their silent spell on all below,

  Drawing a magic circle wide

  About their feet on every side,

  Robbed of all speech and thought and act,

  I have seen God in the cataract.

  In falling water and in flame,

  Never at rest, yet still the same,

  God shows himself. And I have known

  The swift fire frozen into stone,

  And water frozen changelessly

  Into the death of gems. And I

  Long sitting by the thunderous mill

  Have seen the headlong wheel made still,

  And in the silence that ensued

  Have known the endless solitude

  Of being dead and utterly nought.

  Inhabitant of mine own thought,

  I look abroad, and all I see

  Is my creation, made for me:

  Along my thread of life are pearled

  The moments that make up the world.

  L’APRÈS-MIDI D’UN FAUNE

  (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 I have known

  No triumph, but the shadow of a rose.

  But think. These nymphs, their loveliness ... suppose

  They bodied forth your senses’ fabulous thirst?

  Illusion! which the blue eyes of the first,

  As cold and chaste as is the weeping spring,

  Beget: the other, sighing, passioning,

  Is she the wind, warm in your fleece at noon?

  No, through this quiet, when a weary swoon

  Crushes and chokes the latest faint essay

  Of morning, cool against the encroaching day,

  There is no murmuring water, save the gush

  Of my clear fluted notes; and in the hush

  Blows never a wind, save that which through my reed

  Puffs out before the rain of notes can speed

  Upon the air, with that calm breath of art

  That mounts the unwrinkled zenith visibly,

  Where inspiration seeks its native sky.

  You fringes of a calm Sicilian lake,

  The sun’s own mirror which I love to take,

  Silent beneath your starry flowers, tell

  How here I cut the hollow rushes, well

  Tamed by my skill, when on the glaucous gold

  Of distant lawns about their fountain cold

  A living whiteness stirs like a lazy wave;

  And at the first slow notes my panpipes gave

  These flocking swans, these naiads, rather, fly

  Or dive. Noon burns inert and tawny dry,

  Nor marks how clean that Hymen slipped away

  From me who seek in song the real A.

  Wake, then, to the first ardour and the sight,

  O lonely faun, of the old fierce white light,

  With, lilies, one of you for innocence.

  Other than their lips’ delicate pretence,

  The light caress that quiets treacherous lovers,

  My breast, I know not how to tell, discovers

  The bitten print of some immortal’s kiss.

  But hush! a mystery so great as this

  I dare not tell, save to my double reed,

  Which, sharer of my every joy and need,

  Dreams down its cadenced monologues that we

  Falsely confuse the beauties that we see

  With the bright palpable shapes our song creates:

  My flute, as loud as passion modulates,

  Purges the common dream of flank and breast,

  Seen through closed eyes and inwardly caressed,

  Of every empty and monotonous line.

  Bloom then, O Syrinx, in thy flight malign,

  A reed once more beside our trysting-lake.

  Proud of my music, let me often make

  A song of goddesses and see their rape

  Profanely done on many a painted shape.

  So when the grape’s transparent juice I drain,

  I quell regret for pleasures past and feign

  A new real grape. For holding towards the sky

  The empty skin, I blow it tight and lie

  Dream-drunk till evening, eyeing it.

  Tell o’er

  Remembered joys and plump the grape once more.

  Between the reeds I saw their bodies gleam
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br />   Who cool no mortal fever in the stream

  Crying to the woods the rage of their desire:

  And their bright hair went down in jewelled fire

  Where crystal broke and dazzled shudderingly.

  I check my swift pursuit: for see where lie,

  Bruised, being twins in love, by languor sweet,

  Two sleeping girls, clasped at my very feet.

  I seize and run with them, nor part the pair,

  Breaking this covert of frail petals, where

  Roses drink scent of the sun and our light play

  ‘Mid tumbled flowers shall match the death of day.

  I love that virginal fury — ah, the wild

  Thrill when a maiden body shrinks, defiled,

  Shuddering like arctic light, from lips that sear

  Its nakedness ... the flesh in secret fear!

  Contagiously through my linked pair it flies

  Where innocence in either, struggling, dies,

  Wet with fond tears or some less piteous dew.

  Gay in the conquest of these fears, I grew

  So rash that I must needs the sheaf divide

  Of ruffled kisses heaven itself had tied.

  For as I leaned to stifle in the hair

  Of one my passionate laughter (taking care

  With a stretched finger, that her innocence

  Might stain with her companion’s kindling sense

  To touch the younger little one, who lay

  Child-like unblushing) my ungrateful prey

  Slips from me, freed by passion’s sudden death,

  Nor heeds the frenzy of my sobbing breath.

  Let it pass! others of their hair shall twist

  A rope to drag me to those joys I missed.

  See how the ripe pomegranates bursting red

  To quench the thirst of the mumbling bees have bled;

  So too our blood, kindled by some chance fire,

  Flows for the swarming legions of desire.

  At evening, when the woodland green turns gold

  And ashen grey, ‘mid the quenched leaves, behold!

  Red Etna glows, by Venus visited,

  Walking the lava with her snowy tread

  Whene’er the flames in thunderous slumber die.

  I hold the goddess!

  Ah, sure penalty!

  But the unthinking soul and body swoon

  At last beneath the heavy hush of noon.

  Forgetful let me lie where summer’s drouth

  Sifts fine the sand and then with gaping mouth

  Dream planet-struck by the grape’s round wine-red star.

  Nymphs, I shall see the shade that now you are.

  THE LOUSE-HUNTERS

  (From the French of Rimbaud).

  When the child’s forehead, full of torments red,

  Cries out for sleep and its pale host of dreams,

  His two big sisters come unto his bed,

  Having long fingers, tipped with silvery gleams.

  They set him at a casement, open wide

  On seas of flowers that stir in the blue airs,

  And through his curls, all wet with dew, they slide

  Those terrible searching finger-tips of theirs.

  He hears them breathing, softly, fearfully,

  Honey-sweet ruminations, slow respired:

  Then a sharp hiss breaks time and melody —

  Spittle indrawn, old kisses new-desired.

  Down through the perfumed silences he hears

  Their eyelids fluttering: long fingers thrill,

  Probing a lassitude bedimmed with tears,

  While the nails crunch at every louse they kill.

  He is drunk with Languor — soft accordion-sigh,

  Delirious wine of Love in Idleness;

  Longings for tears come welling up and die,

  As slow or swift he feels their magical caress.

  Leda

  CONTENTS

  LEDA

  THE BIRTH OF GOD

  ON HAMPSTEAD HEATH

  SYMPATHY

  MALE AND FEMALE CREATED HE THEM

  FROM THE PILLAR

  JONAH

  VARIATIONS ON A THEME

  A MELODY BY SCARLATTI

  A SUNSET

  LIFE AND ART

  FIRST PHILOSOPHER’S SONG

  SECOND PHILOSOPHER’S SONG

  FIFTH PHILOSOPHER’S SONG

  NINTH PHILOSOPHER’S SONG

  MORNING SCENE

  VERREY’S

  FRASCATI’S

  FATIGUE

  THE MERRY-GO-ROUND

  BACK STREETS

  LAST THINGS

  GOTHIC

  EVENING PARTY

  BEAUTY

  SOLES OCCIDERE ET REDIRE POSSUNT

  LEDA

  BROWN and bright as an agate, mountain-cool,

  Eurotas singing slips from pool to pool;

  Down rocky gullies; through the cavernous pines

  And chestnut groves; down where the terraced vines

  And gardens overhang; through valleys grey

  With olive trees, into a soundless bay

  Of the Ægean. Silent and asleep

  Lie those pools now: but where they dream most deep,

  Men sometimes see ripples of shining hair

  And the young grace of bodies pale and bare,

  Shimmering far down — the ghosts these mirrors hold

  Of all the beauty they beheld of old,

  White limbs and heavenly eyes and the hair’s river of gold,

  For once these banks were peopled: Spartan girls

  Loosed here their maiden girdles and their curls,

  And stooping o’er the level water stole

  His darling mirror from the sun through whole

  Rapturous hours of gazing.

  The first star

  Of all this milky constellation, far

  Lovelier than any nymph of wood or green,

  Was she whom Tyndarus had made his queen

  For her sheer beauty and subtly moving grace —

  Leda, the fairest of our mortal race.

  Hymen had lit his torches but one week

  About her bed (and still o’er her young cheek

  Passed rosy shadows of those thoughts that sped

  Across her mind, still virgin, still unwed,

  For all her body was her own no more),

  When Leda with her maidens to the shore

  Of bright Eurotas came, to escape the heat

  Of summer noon in waters coolly sweet.

  By a brown pool which opened smooth and clear

  Below the wrinkled water of a weir

  They sat them down under an old fir-tree

  To rest: and to the laughing melody

  Of their sweet speech the river’s rippling bore

  A liquid burden, while the sun did pour

  Pure colour out of heaven upon the earth.

  The meadows seethed with the incessant mirth

  Of grasshoppers, seen only when they flew

  Their curves of scarlet or sudden dazzling blue.

  Within the fir-tree’s round of unpierced shade

  The maidens sat with laughter and talk, or played,

  Gravely intent, their game of knuckle-bones;

  Or tossed from hand to hand the old dry cones

  Littered about the tree. And one did sing

  A ballad of some far-off Spartan king,

  Who took a wife, but left her, well-away!

  Slain by his foes upon their wedding-day.

  “That was a piteous story,” Leda sighed,

  “To be a widow ere she was a bride.”

  “Better,” said one, “to live a virgin life

  Alone, and never know the name of wife

  And bear the ugly burden of a child

  And have great pain by it. Let me live wild,

  A bird untamed by man!” “Nay,” cried another,

  “I would be wife, if I should not be mother.


  Cypris I honour; let the vulgar pay

  Their gross vows to Lucina when they pray.

  Our finer spirits would be blunted quite

  By bestial teeming; but Love’s rare delight

  Wings the rapt soul towards Olympus’ height.”

  “Delight?” cried Leda. “Love to me has brought

  Nothing but pain and a world of shameful thought.

  When they say love is sweet, the poets lie;

  ’Tis but a trick to catch poor maidens by.

  What are their boasted pleasures? I am queen

  To the most royal king the world has seen;

  Therefore I should, if any woman might,

  Know at its full that exquisite delight.

  Yet these few days since I was made a wife

  Have held more bitterness than all my life,

  While I was yet a child.” The great bright tears

  Slipped through her lashes. “Oh, my childish years!

  Years that were all my own, too sadly few,

  When I was happy — and yet never knew

  How happy till to-day!” Her maidens came

  About her as she wept, whispering her name,

  Leda, sweet Leda, with a hundred dear

  Caressing words to soothe her heavy cheer.

  At last she started up with a fierce pride

  Upon her face. “I am a queen,” she cried,

  “But had forgotten it a while; and you,

  Wenches of mine, you were forgetful too.

  Undress me. We would bathe ourself.” So proud

  A queen she stood, that all her maidens bowed

  In trembling fear and scarcely dared approach

  To do her bidding. But at last the brooch

  Pinned at her shoulder is undone, the wide

  Girdle of silk beneath her breasts untied;

  The tunic falls about her feet, and she

  Steps from the crocus folds of drapery,

  Dazzlingly naked, into the warm sun.

  God-like she stood; then broke into a run,

  Leaping and laughing in the light, as though

  Life through her veins coursed with so swift a flow

  Of generous blood and fire that to remain

  Too long in statued queenliness were pain

  To that quick soul, avid of speed and joy.

  She ran, easily bounding, like a boy,

  Narrow of haunch and slim and firm of breast.

  Lovelier she seemed in motion than at rest,

  If that might be, when she was never less,

  Moving or still, than perfect loveliness.

  At last, with cheeks afire and heaving flank,

  She checked her race, and on the river’s bank

  Stood looking down at her own echoed shape

 

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