Page:Selected Poems (Huxley).djvu/14



My green aquarium of phantom fish, Goggling in on me through the misty panes; My rotting leaves and fields spongy with rains; My few clear quiet autumn days—I wish

I could leave all, clearness and mistiness; Sodden or goldenly crystal, all too still. Yes, and I too rot with the leaves that fill The hollows in the woods; I am grown less

Than human, listless, aimless as the green Idiot fishes of my aquarium, Who loiter down their dim tunnels and come And look at me and drift away, nought seen

Or understood, but only glazedly Reflected. Upwards, upwards through the shadows, Through the lush sponginess of deep-sea meadows Where hare-lipped monsters batten, let me ply

Winged fins, bursting this matrix dark to find Jewels and movement, mintage of sunlight Scattered largely by the profuse wind, And gulfs of blue brightness, too deep for sight.