Page:Selected Poems (Huxley).djvu/39



"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!"