Aldous Huxley (1894 - 1963) – British writer, philosopher and poet

With thanks to Paul Breeze for discovering that Aldoux Husley wrote and published poetry during and about The First World War

Portrait of Aldoux Huxley
 by
John Maler Collier 

Aldous Leonard Huxley was born on 26th July 1894 in Godalming, Surrey, UK. His parents were Leonard Huxley, a writer and schoolmaster, and his first wife, Julia Frances Huxley, nee Arnold. Julia was the niece of poet and critic Matthew Arnold and the writer Mrs. Humphry Ward was her sister.   Julia named him Aldous after a character in one of her sister's novels.

Initially educated at home by his mother and a governess, Aldous went on to study at Balliol College, Oxford University, graduating with a degree in English Literature.  He published short stories and poetry and edited the literary magazine “Oxford Poetry”.

Exempted from military service due to extremely poor eyesight, during the First World War, Aldous worked on the land as a farm labourer at Garsington Manor near Oxford, home of Lady Ottoline Morrell. While at the Manor, he met several Bloomsbury Group figures, including Bertrand Russell, Alfred North Whitehead, and Clive Bell. In September 1916 Aldous Huxley’s first collection of poetry, "The Burning Wheel", was published by Blackwell.

In 1919, when John Middleton Murry was reorganising “The Athenaeum”  magazine and invited Huxley to join the staff, he accepted immediately, and married Belgian refugee Maria Nys (1899–1955), who he met at Garsington. 

The Huxleys lived with their young son in Italy part of the time during the 1920s, where Aldous used to visit his friend D. H. Lawrence. 

In 1937 the Huxley family went to live in Hollywood, USA. He lived in the U.S., mainly in southern California, and for a time in Taos, New Mexico, until his death on 22nd November 1963. 

As a Hollywood screenwriter Huxley used much of his earnings to bring Jewish and left-wing writer and artist refugees from Hitler's Germany to the US. He worked for many of the major studios including MGM and Disney.

Aldous Huxley died in the UK on 22nd November 1963. 

NOTES:

Garsington Manor in the village of Garsington, near Oxford, UK, is a country house, dating from the 17th century. The owner in the early 20th century was Lady Ottoline Morrell, who held court there from 1915 to 1924.

Garsington became a haven for the Morrells’ friends.  In 1916, they invited conscientious objectors among their friends to go and work on the home farm for the duration of The First World War - as civilian work classified as being of national importance was recognised as an alternative to military service.

“Oxford Poetry”, founded in 1910,  is the oldest dedicated poetry magazine published in the UK, and one of the oldest in the world.

 “The Athenæum” was a British literary magazine published in London, UK from 1828 to 1921.

Although Aldous Huxley is famous as a writer of novels, his WW1 poetry collections were “The Burning Wheel” (Blackwell, Oxford, 1916), “The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems” (Blackwell, Oxford, 1918) and he had two poems published in the anthology “Oxford Poetry 1918”.

Aldoux Huxley by
Vanessa Bell

ALDOUS HUXLEY (BALLIOL)

TWO SONGS

I

THICK-flowered is the trellis

That hides our joys

From prying eyes of malice

And all annoys,

And we lie rosily bowered.

Through the long afternoons

And evenings endlessly

Drawn out, when summer swoons

In perfume windlessly,

Sounds our light laughter,

With whispered words between

And silent kisses.

None but the flowers have seen

Our white caresses —

Flowers and the bright-eyed birds.

II

MEN of a certain age

Grow sad remembering

Their youth’s libertinage,

Drinking and chambering.

She, whom devotedly

Once they solicited,

Proves all too bloatedly

Gross when revisited

Twenty years after,

Sordid years,

Oh, bitter laughter

And bitter tears!

SONG OF POPLARS

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 blur,

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.

From “Oxford Poetry 1918” pp 33 and 34. 

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.

VISION

I had been sitting alone with books,

Till doubt was a black disease,

When I heard the cheerful shout of rooks

In the bare, prophetic trees.

Bare trees, prophetic of new birth,

You lift your branches clean and free

To be a beacon to the earth,

A flame of wrath for all to see.

And the rooks in the branches laugh and shout

To those that can hear and understand;

"Walk through the gloomy ways of doubt

With the torch of vision in your hand."

THE CHOICE.

Comrade, now that you're merry

And therefore true,

Say — where would you like to die

And have your friend to bury

What once was you?

"On the top of a hill

With a peaceful view

Of country where all is still?"...

Great God, not I!

I'd lie in the street

Where two streams meet

And there's noise enough to fill

The outer ear,

While within the brain can beat

Marches of death and life,

Glory and joy and fear,

Peace of the sort that moves

And clash of strife

And routs of armies fleeing.

There would I shake myself clear

Out of the deep-set grooves

Of my sluggish being.

“ THE BURNING WHEEL” BY ALDOUS HUXLEY (B. H. Blackwell, Oxford, 1916)

Sources:  Find my Past, FreeBMD, Wikipedia and

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/70771

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-burning-wheel-aldous-huxley/1138559289

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-burning-wheel-aldous-huxley/1138559289

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Burning-Wheel-Aldous-Huxley-ebook/dp/B07BS5BGJP

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/47912/47912-h/47912-h.htm

https://www.oxfordpoetry.com/

https://archive.org/details/defeatofyouthoth00huxluoft/page/n5/mode/2up

 

James Laughlin Hughes (1846 – 1935) – Canadian public speaker, educator, school inspector, author and poet

With thanks to Stanley Kaye – the Poppy Man – for sending me a WW1 poem written by J.L. Hughes. 

James Laughlin Hughes was born near Bowmanville, Ontario, Canada on 20th  February 1846. James’ father came from County Tyrone (Northern Ireland). His mother was the daughter of a British Artillery officer serving in Lower Canada. James was the eldest of their 11 children

At the age of 12 James passed the examination for a second-class teaching certificate and finished his schooling two years later. He worked on the family farm until he was 17, then accepted a six-month teaching position in Hope Township’s school section 10, which began his teaching career.

James wrote at least 29 books, including 8 works of poetry, and scores of articles on pedagogy, among other subjects. When his retirement was announced, a tribute published in the “Toronto Star Weekly” labelled him “a many sided man.”

James died in Toronto on 3rd January 1935.

A poem entitled “His Unfinished Story” by James L. Hughes, Toronto, Canada … (ended in Belgium 14th November 1915)   

Sources:  Information supplied by Stanley Kaye, 

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/james-laughlin-hughes

http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/hughes_james_laughlin_16F.html

Catherine W. Reilly.- “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978) p. 397.

George Chester Duggan (1885 - ? ) - Irish poet and Civil Servant

George Chester Duggan was born on 5th February1885 in Parsonstown, King's Co. (Offaly), Ireland. His parents were George Duggan, born in Co. Fermanagh, Manager of the Provincial Bank, College Green, Dublin, and his wife, Emily Dugga, née Grant.  

On the 1911 Census his name is registered as Chester George Duggan. The family later lived at Ferney, Greystones, Co. Wicklow. 

Educated at the High School, Dublin, and Trinity College Dublin, where he was a senior moderator and double gold medallist (1907), George graduated in 1907 with a Batchelor of Arts Degree (BA). In 1908 he entered the British civil service and served in the Admiralty (1908–10, 1914–16), chief secretary's office, Dublin Castle (1910–14, 1919–21), and Ministry of Shipping (1917–19). 

In 1912 George married Elizabeth Gore, youngest daughter of Rev. Robert Blair of Ballinamallard, Co. Fermanagh. They had one daughter.

“The Watchers on Gallipoli” is a 43 page poetic work, published in 1921 as a dedication to Irish poet and Civil Servant George Chester Duggan’s two brothers – George Grant (Royal Irish Fusiliers) and Jack (5th Royal Irish Regiment) who both died at Sulva in August 1915.

A line from the poem:

“March away my brothers, softly march away“ 

Sources:

Catherine W. Reilly.-  “English Poetry of the First World War:  A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978), p. 117.

Find my Past, FreeBMD,

https://fass.open.ac.uk/sites/fass.open.ac.uk/files/files/new-voices-journal/issue10/allen.pdf

https://www.dib.ie/biography/duggan-george-chester-a2821#:~:text=Duggan%2C%20George%20Chester%20(1885%E2%80%93,Emily%20Duggan%20(n%C3%A9e%20Grant).

https://www.mayobooks.ie/March-Away-Brothers-Irish-Soldiers-Music-Great-War-9781907535246

Who was the poet C.A.A.?

 To C.A.L. (The Hon. Charles Lister) by C.A.A.

To have laughed and talked - wise, witty, fantastic, feckless -

To have mocked at rules and rulers and learnt to obey,

To have led your men with a daring adored and reckless,

To have struck your blow for Freedom, the old straight way:

To have hated the world and lived among those who love it,

To have thought great thoughts and lived till you knew them true,

To have loved men more than yourself and have died to prove it -

Yes, Charles, this is to have lived: was there more to do?

The poem was first published in London, UK in “The Times” newspaper in November 1917 and reprinted in February 1918 in “The Muse in Arms” anthology Edited by E. B. Osborne

https://www.firstworldwar.com/poetsandprose/mia_tocal.htm?fbclid=IwAR2N7bpLrnxl0q8FmhvWU8BNpCa7etzdUDO3dZlwySCKhukTPiYLZRgFrv4_aem_AWEgHouUrlPM_D7vmjgOBsJM6nGRaO5AWdomSIbrkOk0csq3z5BSPC78JM-0gr4yyQyooCN-CV20OUNC8uZwOKHc

Duncan Campbell Scott (1862 – 1947) – Canadian poet, writer and Civil Servant

Duncan was born on 2nd August 1863 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. His parens were the Rev. William Scott and his wife, Janet, nee MacCallum. Educated at Stanstead Wesleyan College, Duncan also learnt to play the piano and became an accomplished pianist.  

Duncan’s ambition was to study medicine and become a doctor, but that was too expensive.  In 1879 he joined the federal civil service and worked as a Civil Servant, spending all his working life in the same branch of government - the Department of Indian Affairs. In 1913, Duncan became Deputy Superintendent of Indian Affairs, the highest non-elected position possible in his department, and remained in the post until his retirement in 1932.

In 1894, Duncan married Belle Botsford, a concert violinist, who he had met at a recital in Ottawa. They had one child, Elizabeth, who died when she was12 years old.

Belle died in 1929 and in 1931 Duncan married the poet Elise Aylen. After his retirement, Duncan and Elise spent much of the 1930s and 1940s travelling in Europe, Canada and the United States of America. 

Duncan died in December 1947 in Ottawa at the age of 85 and was buried in Ottawa's Beechwood Cemetery.

Photo of Scott with Rupert Brooke from Rupert Booke Remembered Facebook Page:

As a poet, Duncan became a member of the group known as the "Confederation poets" which also included Charles G.D. Roberts, Bliss Carman and Archibald Lampman.  Duncan’s first poetry collection, “The Magic House and Other Poems”, was published in 1893 and was followed by seven more volumes of verse: Labor and the Angel (1898), New World Lyrics and Ballads (1905), Via Borealis (1906), Lundy's Lane and Other Poems (1916), Beauty and Life (1921), The Poems of Duncan Campbell Scott (1926) and The Green Cloister (1935).

“The Fallen” by Duncan Campbell Scott 

Those we have loved the dearest,

The bravest and the best,

Are summoned from the battle

To their eternal rest;

There they endure the silence,

Here we endure the pain —

He that bestows the Valor

Valor resumes again.

O, Master of all Being,

Donor of Day and Night,

Of Passion and of Beauty,

Of Sorrow and Delight,

Thou gav'st them the full treasure

Of that heroic blend —

The Pride, the Faith, the Courage,

That holdeth to the end.

Thou gavest us the Knowledge

Wherein their memories stir—

Master of Life, we thank Thee

That they were what they were.

Sources: Find my Past, Wikipedia,

https://allpoetry.com/poem/14330124-The-Fallen-by-Duncan-Campbell-Scott

https://www.facebook.com/rupertbrookepoet

Catherine W. Reilly “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978) p. 400.

Robert Lee Frost (1874 – 1963) - American poet

Robert Frost c. 1910

Robert Frost was born in San Francisco, California, USA on 26th March 1874..  His parents were William Prescott Frost, Jr., a journalist and teacher, and his wife Isabelle, nee Moodie. His mother was from Scotland and his father was descended from Nicholas Frost of Tiverton, Devon, England, who sailed to New Hampshire in 1634 on the “Wolfrana”.

Robert’s first poem was published in his high school's magazine.  He studied at Harvard University from 1897 to 1899, then became a teacher.   

On 19th December 1895 Robert married Elinor White in  Massachusetts, United States.

In 1912 Robert and his family travelled to England – living initially in Beaconsfield, a small town in Buckinghamshire. His first book of poetry, “A Boy's Will”, was published the following year. In England Robert met fellow poets, including Edward Thomas (a member of the group known as the Dymock poets and Frost's inspiration for "The Road Not Taken"), T. E. Hulme, and Ezra Pound.

Robert returned to America in 1915 and bought a farm in Franconia, New Hampshire, where he launched a career of writing, teaching, and lecturing.

The following poem was written to tease his chronically indecisive friend and fellow poet Edward Thomas, who misinterpreted the meaning, enlisted in the British Army and was killed fighting on the Western Front in France on the First Day of the Battle of Arras – Easter Monday, 9th April 1917. Edward Thomas was buried in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery at Agny, France – Row 3, 43.

“The Road Not Taken” was originally published in “The Atlantic” magazine in 1915 along with two other poems from Frost.

The Road Not Taken  BY ROBERT FROST

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Sources:  

Find my Past, Wikipedia, 

Catherine W. Reilly “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978), p. 396

https://forgottenpoetsofww1.blogspot.com/2019/03/edward-thomas-1878-

Robert Bagster Wilson Vinter, MC (1896 – 1916) – British soldier and poet

With grateful thanks to Rachel Hassall, Archivist at Sherborne School, Dorset, UK

Robert was born in Torpoint, St. Germans, Cornwall, UK on 5th April 1896.  His parents were Sydney Garrett Vinter, a medical practitioner, and his wife, Frances Vinter, nee Toms.  Robert had a sister – Frances Jean, born 1904.

Educated at Sherborne School, Dorset, Robert was awarded a scholarship to study at Keble College, Oxford.  However, the First World War intervened and instead he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant into the 6th Worcestershire Regiment.  

Posted to the Western Front, Robert was awarded the Military Cross on 28th July 1916 for conspicuous gallantry during an attack on an enemy crater.   He was killed in action near Les Boeufs (Vimy Ridge) in France on 31st October 1916, during the Battle of the Somme.  Robert is remembered on the Thiepval Memorial in France and on the War Memorial in Torpoint, Cornwall.  

An untitled poem written by Robert:

The Saviour fast nailed to the Cross,

Suffered theloss of comforting divine

Because the world’s sin burdened him too much

With black despair. Some of that sin was mine.

Hard sought, scarce won, He set my spirit right

And bade me follow up th’illumined way!

Nor leaves me now amid the rocks and thorns,

Uncomforted, but is my staff and stay.

October, 1916 R.B.W.V.

Published in “The Shirburnian” magazine of Sherborne School in April 1917. 

Sources:

“The Shirburnian” magazine, April 1917

Find my Past, FreeBMD, 

“Supplement to The London Gazette, 27 July 1916

http://somme-roll-of-honour.com/Units/british/2nd_worcestershire.htm