Poems By Arjava

Discerning

I PUT out my hand and you will lead me

Down the secret valley to a shore

Thundered on by foam-spent former ages—

Will the ship with a griffin beak be anchored as before?

Someone loosed the cable of the present,

Hoisted sail and steered the gleaming prow

Through green-watered island-covered ocean—

Landed on the coast—and cut the golden bough.

Clear translucent leaves of golden glamour

Wreathe the cloudy topaz of the fruit :

What rune-encircled knife could safely sever

From night's familiar grove that strangely dawning shoot ?

November 20, 1934.