Aldous Huxley & Song of Poplars

Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963), who came from a distinguished literary family, is best remembered for such novels as Brave New World and Point Counter Point, but he also wrote poetry. This one is rather lovely.

Shepherd, to yon tall poplars tune your flute:
Let them pierce, keenly, subtly shrill,
The slow blue rumour of the hill;
Let the grass cry with an anguish of evening gold,
And the great sky be mute.

Then hearken how the poplar trees unfold
Their buds, yet close and gummed and blind,
In airy leafage of the mind,
Rustling in silvery whispers the twin-hued scales
That fade not nor grow old.

“Poplars and fountains and you cypress spires
Springing in dark and rusty flame,
Seek you aught that hath a name?
Or say, say: Are you all an upward agony
Of undefined desires?

“Say, are you happy in the golden march
Of sunlight all across the day?
Or do you watch the uncertain way
That leads the withering moon on cloudy stairs
Over the heaven’s wide arch?

“Is it towards sorrow or towards joy you lift
The sharpness of your trembling spears?
Or do you seek, through the grey tears
That blur the sky, in the heart of the triumphing blue,
A deeper, calmer rift?”

So; I have tuned my music to the trees,
And there were voices, dim below
Their shrillness, voices swelling slow
In the blue murmur of hills, and a golden cry
And then vast silences.

It was first published in his 1916 volume The Burning Wheel. It begins with a sense of disillusionment about the modern world, and displays a search for meaning as the poet questions and yearns for escape. In all his works, Huxley was interested in the human condition and man’s search for meaning. Is it to be found in nature, or through art?

When exhorting the shepherd to tune his flute to yon poplars, he is seeking a union of art and nature. The rustling of the leaves resembles musical scales. He wants to capture in his poem the “airy leafage of the mind”, drawing inspiration from nature. Huxley was an ardent pacifist, and at the end of the poem, there is silence, but the poplars are part of nature’s cycle and will see rebirth in the spring. Huxley captures the fleeting beauty of nature – his imagery is vivid and evocative. He also manages to catch the essence of the poplar tree, with its tight buds, the “golden march” of a row of poplars, and the way they lift their “sharp and trembling spears” towards the sky.

The words of the poem have been set to music, but I can’t find any really good readings of it for you, I’m afraid.