Page:Selected Poems (Huxley).djvu/44

STANZAS.

Thought is an unseen net wherein our mind
Is taken and vainly struggles to be free:
Words, that should loose our spirit, do but bind
New fetters on our hoped-for liberty:
And action bears us onward like a stream
Past fabulous shores, scarce seen in our swift course;
Glorious—and yet its headlong currents seem
But backwaters of some diviner force.

There are slow curves, more subtle far than thought,
That stoop to carry the grace of a girl's breast;
And hanging flowers, so exquisitely wrought
In airy metal, that they seem possessed
Of souls; and there are distant hills that lift
The shoulder of a god towards the light;
And arrowy trees, sudden and sharp and swift,
Piercing the spirit deeply with delight.

Would I might make these miracles my own!
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.