Poems By Arjava

[Suggested in part by Yeats' lines :—

" And lingered in the hidden desolate place,

Where the last Phoenix died*

And wrapped the flames above his holy head ;"]

HEART of the holy Phoenix, grant my prayer

to be thy hierophant:

then in the desert precincts I prepare

beggarly tokens of Love's regnitude,

high sphered in spirit-lovely adamant,—

dog worthy crumbs of the ambrosial food

lifted in lordly rites by blissful celebrant

amid the joy-thrilled firmaments of being.

From wan and wind-swayed ashes came the victor, phoenix-renewed ;

so from the dim earth symbol rise up, O Rose of seeing.

Concealing silver calyx of the Rose,

no more you wholly hide

the myriad-shaded mystery that flows

in crimson whorls of splendour round the pure

centrality of dross less gold beside

the nectar wells of wonder and the sure

petal-breathed tang of changeless love time-verified.

Surely this petal-sweetened breeze came flowing

out of the sheer unfathomed vastness to procure

rum our of the Undying Rose from finite clay up growing ?

But now through moonlit roadstead swings the sun

in height's tranquillity;

Time's brabble pauses—as a beck may run

into a sky-clear pool, held dreaming-deep ;

Day's minutecourse tangents Eternity

and all unshapely thought is put to sleep.

Veiled in a flicker of wings, from that immensity

on delicate azure pinions calm descending,

he crowns, Prometheus wise, life with resurgent leap

of a quenchless flame fraught worship,—phoenix-lit fire unending.