A Work by Aldous Huxley

I went searching for a poem and came upon one entitled "Love Song," which is found in Aldous Huxley's second book of poetry entitled The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems.

"Dear absurd child--too dear to my cost I've found--
God made your soul for pleasure, not for use:
It cleaves no way, but angled broad obtuse,
Impinges with a slabby-bellied sound
Full upon life, and on the rind of things
Rubs its sleek self and utters purr and snore
And all the gamut of satisfied murmurings,
Content with that, nor wishes anything more.
A happy infant, daubed to the eyes in juice
Of peaches that flush bloody at the core,
Naked you bask upon a south-sea shore,
While o'er your tumbling bosom the hair floats loose.
The wild flowers bloom and die; the heavens go round
With the song of wheeling planetary rings:
You wriggle in the sun; each moment brings
Its freight for you; in all things pleasures abound.
You taste and smile, then this for the next pass over;
And there's no future for you and no past,
And when, absurdly, death arrives at last,
'Twill please you awhile to kiss your latest lover."


Although somewhat morbid I enjoy the ending because this isn't an ordinary love poem, rather it depicts what will one day occur to all of us, death. In a way it reminds me of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," in the sense that it isn't really a love song either. I did a bit of research after reading this poem and found the following information, which explains a bit of symbolism and imagery.

"“Love Song” is spoken by a rejected lover and addressed to a hedonist whose soul is made “for pleasure, not for use.” She is associated with a cat, as her soul  “rubs its sleek self and utters purr and snore,” and with an infant, still trapped within the realm of the sensual.  There is something diabolical about this child, however, as its eyes are “daubed [with] juice / Of peaches that flush bloody at the core,” and the succession of lovers will conclude with “death.”  This is no Baroque memento mori, but is characterized by the recognition of the absurd throughout – the word “absurd” actually occurs in the first and second-to-last lines of the poem.  “Love Song” is thus an indictment of the attitude toward love as something purely pleasurable, sensual, and fickle (“You taste and smile, then this for the next pass over”); such an attitude is both threatening and patently “absurd.”"

Hedonism: a school of thought that argues that pleasure is the primary or most important intrinsic good. In very simple terms, a hedonist strives to maximize net pleasure (pleasure minus pain).

Memento Mori: Latin 'remember (that you have) to die') is the medieval Latin theory and practice of reflection on mortality, especially as a means of considering the vanity of earthly life and the transient nature of all earthly goods and pursuits. It is related to the ars moriendi or “Art of Dying”