Revelation
At your mouth, white and milk-warm sphinx,I taste a strange apocalypse:Your subtle taper finger-tipsWeave me new heavens, yet, methinks,I know the wiles and each iynxThat brought me passionate to your lips:I know you bare as laughter stripsYour charnel beauty; yet my spirit drinks
Pure knowledge from this tainted well,And now hears voices yet unheardWithin it, and without it seesThat world of which the poets tellTheir vision in the stammered wordOf those that wake from piercing ecstasies.
Words in this poem
- apocalypse n.
- The revelation delivered to St. John, in the isle of Patmos, near the close of the first century, forming the last book of the New Testament. [L. apocalypsis, Gr. apocalypse.]
- methinks v.
- It seems to me; I think. See Me. [AS. þyncan to seem, me þynceedh, me þuhte, OE. me thinketh, me thoughte; akin to G. dünken to seem, denken to think, and E. think. See Me, and Think.]
- unheard a.
- Not heard; not perceived by the ear; as, words unheard by those present.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Revelation is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Defeat of Youth, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #24364; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Aldous Huxley, Revelation, in The Defeat of Youth, and Other Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #24364, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/huxley-defeat-of-youth/revelation.html, id L22024.
Form and metre
Revelation is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABBAABBA sphinxA · apocalypseB · tipsB · methinksA · iynxA · lipsB · stripsB · drinksA
- 2 ABCABC wellA · unheardB · seesC · tellA · wordB · ecstasiesC
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| At your mouth, white and milk-warm sphinx, | 8 | ········ |
| I taste a strange apocalypse: | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| Your subtle taper finger-tips | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| Weave me new heavens, yet, methinks, | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| I know the wiles and each iynx | 7 | ······· |
| That brought me passionate to your lips: | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| I know you bare as laughter strips | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Your charnel beauty; yet my spirit drinks | 9 | ·/˘/˘··/· |
| Pure knowledge from this tainted well, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| And now hears voices yet unheard | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| Within it, and without it sees | 8 | ········ |
| That world of which the poets tell | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Their vision in the stammered word | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Of those that wake from piercing ecstasies. | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.