Leda Aldous Huxley 1

Leda Aldous Huxley 1

Leda Aldous Huxley

C O N T E N T S

 

 

LEDA 1

THE BIRTH OF GOD 19

ON HAMPSTEAD HEATH 21

SYMPATHY 22

MALE AND FEMALE CREATED HE THEM 23

FROM THE PILLAR 24

JONAH 25

VARIATIONS ON A THEME 26

A MELODY BY SCARLATTI 27

A SUNSET 28

LIFE AND ART 30

FIRST PHILOSOPHER’S SONG 31

SECOND PHILOSOPHER’S SONG 32

FIFTH PHILOSOPHERS SONG 33

NINTH PHILOSOPHER’S SONG 34

MORNING SCENE 36

VERREY’S 37

FRASCATI’S 38

FATIGUE 39

THE MERRY-GO-ROUND 40

BACK STREETS 41

LAST THINGS 42

GOTHIC 43

EVENING PARTY 44

BEAUTY 45

SOLES OCCIDERE ET REDIRE POSSUNT 55

 

 

 

 

L E D A

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

And at the fish that, aimlessly agape,

Hung midway up their heaven of flawless glass,

Like angels waiting for eternity to pass.

Leda drew breath and plunged; her gasping cry

Splashed up; the water circled brokenly

Out from that pearly shudder of dipped limbs;

The glittering pool laughed up its flowery brims,

And everything, save the poor fish, rejoiced:

Their idiot contemplation of the Moist,

The Cold, the Watery, was in a trice

Ended when Leda broke their crystal paradise.

 

Jove in his high Olympian chamber lay

Hugely supine, striving to charm away

In sleep the long, intolerable noon.

But heedless Morpheus still withheld his boon,

And Jove upon his silk-pavilioned bed

Tossed wrathful and awake. His fevered head

Swarmed with a thousand fancies, which forecast

Delights to be, or savoured pleasures past.

Closing his eyes, he saw his eagle swift,

Headlong as his own thunder, stoop and lift

On pinions upward labouring the prize

Of beauty ravished for the envious skies.

He saw again that bright, adulterous pair,

Trapped by the limping husband unaware,

Fast in each other’s arms, and faster in the snare—

And laughed remembering. Sometimes his thought

Went wandering over the earth and sought

Familiar places—temples by the sea,

Cities and islands; here a sacred tree

And there a cavern of shy nymphs.