Produced by Tamise Totterdell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries.) THE DEFEAT OF YOUTH AND OTHER POEMS BY ALDOUS HUXLEY, AUTHOR OF "THE BURNING WHEEL." CONTENTS Page The Defeat of Youth 5 Song of Poplars 16 The Reef 17 Winter Dream 19 The Flowers 20 The Elms 21 Out of the Window 21 Inspiration 22 Summer Stillness 23 Anniversaries 23 Italy 25 The Alien 26 A Little Memory 27 Waking 28 By the Fire 29 Valedictory 31 Love Song 32 Private Property 33 Revelation 34 Minoan Porcelain 34 The Decameron 35 In Uncertainty to a Lady 35 Crapulous Impression 36 The Life Theoretic 37 Complaint of a Poet Manqué 37 Social Amenities 38 Topiary 38 On the Bus 39 Points and Lines 39 Panic 40 Return from Business 40 Stanzas 41 Poem 42 Scenes of the Mind 43 L'Après-Midi D'un Faune 44 The Louse-Hunters 48 THE DEFEAT OF YOUTH I. UNDER THE TREES. There had been phantoms, pale-remembered shapes Of this and this occasion, sisterly In their resemblances, each effigy Crowned with the same bright hair above the nape's White rounded firmness, and each body alert With such swift loveliness, that very rest Seemed a poised movement: ... phantoms that impressed But a faint influence and could bless or hurt No more than dreams. And these ghost things were she; For formless still, without identity, Not one she seemed, not clear, but many and dim. One face among the legions of the street, Indifferent mystery, she was for him Something still uncreated, incomplete. II.