"So you don't much like civilization, Mr. Savage."

“So you don’t much like civilization, Mr. Savage.”*

In grief, the reflections of endless, walking mirrors

distort and clarify in their ugliness —

boy after boy, twin after twin, surge forward with glee,

pouncing on happiness, not truth. No,

not truth. Happiness is a balm that cleanses

and eases the poison of Shakespearean beauty.

Civilization defends, controls, observes. Holidays

and hatred mingle in the unrest of mothers

and sons and soma.

Civilization has shouldered the burden of love,

cast it aside in the quest of many, of much,

of pleasure and lust and place. Savage

are the tears of loss, of bared lips and teeth

crying “Liberty!”

“It hasn’t been very good for truth, of course. But it’s been very good for happiness.”**

This bold, searching world, a new world,

is heady. Delicious in manner and rules. Solid,

quiet - shared. The selfish are gone, consumed

by distance and science. Only the decanted remain. Willful

and practical are the citizens of the new world.

Boldness is sameness, hatched by design.

Helm holders linger over the possibilities: truth. Beauty. Happiness.

To choose is to know of Othello, orthodoxy, duty.

Duty to station and breeding above all else. The castes are cast

like concrete pillars,

immovable and always. To wish

for more is to ignore the perfection of Utopia. Why strive

for the punishment of oneness when all are within

fingertips’ reach to grasp and hold and trade?

Mr. Savage, take the whip, take beauty, take your words, words, words.

Civilization is paving a new world.

* (Huxley, 197)

** (Huxley, 205)