Page 284 - BRAVE NEW WORLD By Aldous Huxley (1894-1963)

Brave New World By Aldous Huxley

threatened to hand me the immediate sack. l'm a

marked man."

"But what were your rhymes?" Bernard

asked.

"They were about being alone."

Bernard's eyebrows went up.

"I'll recite them to you, if you like." And

Helmholtz began:

"Yesterday's committee, Sticks, but a broken

drum, Midnight in the City, Flutes in a vacuum,

Shut lips, sleeping faces, Every stopped machine,

The dumb and littered places Where crowds have

been: All silences rejoice, Weep (loudly or low),

Speak–but with the voice Of whom, I do not know.

Absence, say, of Susan's, Absence of Egeria's Arms

and respective bosoms, Lips and, ah, posteriors,

Slowly form a presence; Whose? and, I ask, of what

So absurd an essence, That something, which is

not, Nevertheless should populate Empty night

more solidlyThan that with which we copulate, Why

should it seem so squalidly?

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