Page:Selected Poems (Huxley).djvu/43



Instants in the quiet, small sharp stars, Pierce my spirit with a thrust whose speed Baffles even the grasp of time. Oh that I might reflect them As swiftly, as keenly as they shine. But I am a pool of waters, summer-still, And the stars are mirrored across me; Those stabbing points of the sky Turned to a thread of shaken silver, A long fine thread.

PANIC.

The eyes of the portraits on the wall Look at me, follow me, Stare incessantly: It take it their glance means nothing at all? —Clearly, oh clearly! Nothing at all

Out in the gardens by the lake The sleeping peacocks suddenly wake; Out in the gardens, moonlit and forlorn, Each of them sounds his mournful horn: Shrill peals that waver and crack and break. What can have made the peacocks wake?