Inspiration

by Aldous Huxley *

Crapulous Impression

(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 bowl,

And there are faces against the night

Of the outer room- faces that seem

Part of this still, still life ... they've lost their soul.

And amongst these frozen faces you smiled,

Surprised, surprisingly, like a child:

And out of the frozen welter of sound

Your voice came quietly, quietly.

'What about God?' you said. 'I have found

Much to be said for Totality.

All, I take it, is God: God's all- 

This bottle, for instance ...' I recall,

Dimly, that you took God by the neck- 

God-in-the-bottle- and pushed Him across:

But I, without a moment's loss

Moved God-in-the-salt in front and shouted: 'Check!' 

Inspiration 

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 of sudden blue.

Dimming the sun-drunk petals,

Bright even unto pain,

The grasshopper flashes, settles,

And then is quenched again. 

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. 

* Aldous L Huxley (26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. Best known for his novels including Brave New World and a wide-ranging output of essays, Huxley also edited the magazine Oxford Poetry, and published short stories, poetry, travel writing, film stories and scripts. Huxley spent the later part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death. 

Aldous Huxley was a humanist, pacifist, and satirist, and he was latterly interested in spiritual subjects such as parapsychology and philosophical mysticism. He is also well known for advocating and taking psychedelics. 

By the end of his life Huxley was widely acknowledged as one of the pre-eminent intellectuals of his time and respected as an important researcher into visual communication and sight-related theories as well.