Aldous Leonard Huxley was born on July 26th at Godalming, Surrey. His mother (a niece to poet Matthew Arnold) died when he was 14, shortly thereafter he suffered an outbreak of keratitis punctata which left him almost blind for two years. With the outbreak of war he volunteered for service but was rejected on health grounds: he was half-blind in one eye. Once his eyesight recovered sufficiently, he was able to study English literature at Balliol College, Oxford. In 1916 he edited Oxford Poetry and later graduated (B.A.) with first class honours. His brother Julian wrote, "I believe his blindness was a blessing in disguise. He was able to take all knowledge for his province". Looking at his intellectual output and the regard in which he is held it is easy to see that his talents were vast and wide ranging. Across novels with such iconic books as Brave New World, poetry and essays his talents keep to a unique and uniformly high standard. Here we publish The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems.