Poems By Arjava

New-Risen Moon's Eclipse

HARSH like the shorn head high of a gaunt grey-hooded friar

Who fearsthe beauty and use of sculptured limbs

(Brandingthe sculptor-archetype a liar),

O moon but lately risen from the foam where the sea-mew skims—

Form that a wan light cassocks, grace that a tonsure dims.

Joy that the leaden curse is rolled away to leave the golden

Tresses of earth-transforming gramarye

Whereby our wildered flesh-fret is enfolden—

O fair as the foam-fashioned goddess that awoke from the wonderingsea,

Love with the earth-shroud lifted, star from the shade set free !

Full moon, March 1932