Aldous Huxley

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
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