THE BURNING WHEEL BY ALDOUS HUXLEY Oxford B. H. Blackwell, Broad St. 1916 ADVENTURERS ALL A SERIES OF YOUNG POETS UNKNOWN TO FAME COME MY FRIENDS--'TIS NOT TOO LATE "TO SEEK A NEWER WORLD --IT MAY BE THAT THE GULFS WILL WAN US DOWN--IT MAY BE WE SHALL TOUCH THE HAPPY ISLES--YET--OUR PURPOSE HOLDS--TO SAIL BEYOND THE SUNSET. ULYSSES SPEECH FINELY FRAMED DELIGHTETH THE EARS OF THEM THAT HEAR THE STORY --II MACCAB. XV. My thanks are due to the Editor of the Nation for permission to reprint "The Mirror," "Variations on a theme of Laforgue" and "Philosophy." CONTENTS. The Burning Wheel Doors of the Temple Villiers de L'Isle-Adams Darkness Mole The Two Seasons Two Realities Quotidian Vision Vision The Mirror Variations on a Theme of Laforgue Philosophy Philoclea in the Forest Books and Thoughts Contrary to Nature and Aristotle Escape The Garden The Canal The Ideal found wanting Misplaced Love Sonnet Sentimental Summer The Choice The Higher Sensualism Sonnet Formal Verses Perils of the Small Hours Complaint Return to an Old Home Fragment The Walk THE BURNING WHEEL. Wearied of its own turning, Distressed with its own busy restlessness, Yearning to draw the circumferent pain-- The rim that is dizzy with speed-- To the motionless centre, there to rest, The wheel must strain through agony On agony contracting, returning Into the core of steel. And at last the wheel has rest, is still, Shrunk to an adamant core: Fulfilling its will in fixity. But the yearning atoms, as they grind Closer and closer, more and more Fiercely together, beget A flaming fire upward leaping, Billowing out in a burning, Passionate, fierce desire to find The infinite calm of the mother's breast. And there the flame is a Christ-child sleeping, Bright, tenderly radiant; All bitterness lost in the infinite Peace of the mother's bosom. But death comes creeping in a tide Of slow oblivion, till the flame in fear Wakes from the sleep of its quiet brightness And burns with a darkening passion and pain, Lest, all forgetting in quiet, it perish. And as it burns and anguishes it quickens, Begetting once again the wheel that yearns-- Sick with its speed--for the terrible stillness Of the adamant core and the steel-hard chain. And so once more Shall the wheel revolve till its anguish cease In the iron anguish of fixity; Till once again Flame billows out to infinity, Sinking to a sleep of brightness In that vast oblivious peace. DOORS OF THE TEMPLE.