Carpe Noctem
There is no future, there is no more past
No roots nor fruits, but momentary flowers,
Lie still, only lie still and night will last
Silent and dark, not for a space of hours,
But everlastingly. Let me forget
All but your perfume, every night but this.
The shame, the fruitless weeping, the regret.
Only lie still: this faint and quiet bliss
Shall flower upon the brink of sleep and spread
Till there is nothing left but you and I
Clasped in a timeless silence. But like one
Who, doomed to die, at morning will be dead,
I know, though night seem dateless, that the sky
must brighten soon before tomorrow's sun.
Aldous Huxley
My friend Tony Egan showed me this poem years ago. In striking contrast to poem 18 (The Tyger) this sonnet cries out to be set to music. The phrases `silent and dark', `only lie still', `nor roots nor fruits', `let me forget' all suggest to me a common semitone figure moving between a minor subdominant and a dominant. It gradually goes away with the dawn.

I started 45 years ago and one day i'll finish.

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