Page:Selected Poems (Huxley).djvu/29



Darkness had stretched its colour, Deep blue across the pane: No cloud to make night duller, No moon with its tarnish stain; But only here and there a star, One sharp point of frosty fire, Hanging infinitely far In mockery of our life and death And all our small desire.

Now in this hour of waking From under brows of stone, A new pale day is breaking And the deep night is gone. Sordid now, and mean and small The daylight world is seen again, With only the veils of mist that fall Deaf and muffling over all To hide its ugliness and pain.

But to-day this dawn of meanness Shines in my eyes, as when The new world's brightness and cleanness Broke on the first of men. For the light that shows the huddled things