Poems By Arjava

Je Te Donne Ces Vers

(From Baudelaire)

I GIVE to thee these lines that if my name's prow hail

After auspicious voyage the shores of future clime

And blend with men's thoughts at eve a shadowy dream-chime,

A galliot speeding down the course of a veer less gale,

Thy memory, like the unfixed legends of old time,

May as a dulcimer the listening ears assail

And weary them, and a mystic fellowship prevail

And link to it everlastingly my haughty rhyme,

Being whom all revile, to whom from the chasmed black

To the zenith of light none, save I, throws answer back !

—O thou who, like a shadow which leaves no dint or sign.

With serene look and so light footsteps tread and pass

Across the purblind men who deem thee as malign,

Figure with eyes of jet, angel with forehead of brass.

March 24, 1934.