Poems By Arjava

THE GOLDEN ARC

A VERSE PLAY IN FOUR SCENES

Characters in order of appearance

NAOMI

. A young girl

THE SAGE

. A man advanced in years, but firmly poised and not bent or limping in gait

ABEL

. A youth

THE SIBYL

. A woman advanced in years, but with an ageless face

MARA

. An old woman

CAIN

. An oldish man, seeming prematurely aged

SPEAKERS
OF THE
EPILOGUE

. Either men, or women with resonant lowpitched voices, or both men and women together

TIME—

Late evening in midsummer.

Place—

Open country with a few trees. To right, a pool with water-lily leaves. To left, a simple cabin with an open door from which some light comes during the earlier portion of the scene. Naomi is swinging on a low-sweeping bough near the centre of the stage.

Naomi (Singing)—

Filmy the mist on the high mountain tarn

Veiling the sombre hue,

And sedges aglimmer with attercop yarn

Spangled with midsummer dew.

Deep lay the valley of moon bright lake

Lapping an island dim—

Spell which the dipping swallows break

With sunrise on far sea-brim.

The nigh-to-open moon upheaves the east

like some white-globed Spring flower peeping out

through chinks of black-loamed night. And after dawn

the sleeping nenuphars lift up from the pool

in a white whisper, as if elusive moonrays

had lent the speech of immortality

to earthly flowers.

Sage (entering from Right)

Beyond, beyond, beyond.

Their gift of speech is but a brief enchantment.

NAOMI—

Tell me the meaning of their speech.

SAGE—

Not here ;

the strings of silver stretch to far horizons

and there is fastened the tip of a golden are

which the strong bliss of gods alone can wield.

But when the shaft of loveliness is launched,

its arrowed silver sings great disarray

The beauty of your eyes grows richer now. Naomi

NAOMI-

My soul goes out through them in search of glory

SAGE-

Which having found, you may transmute the sullen

years of earth to a snatch of such moon-rhythm

as will enweave its music in the wooing

some youth may bring you ; so for a moon-day

like the nenuphars tomorrow shall set blooming

your lives shall twine about a magic silence

from whence exhilarant song of world's remaking

can take its birth : if by your strength you sing it,

the angry tribal fear shall be withstood.

Supernal courage bends the golden are

Let the dim flame wed with tribal dark.

Now the moon's rays have lighted

on the dark pool and leaves of nenuphar. . .

Silver.... Far horizons.... These are not

as things we touch and use and wear away.

TIME—

Forenoon in midsummer.. .

PLACE—

A grassy open space. To Left a clump of bushes hides from sight a small river running diagonally to the further distance on Right. At the extreme Right near the front (of the stage) there is a grassy mound. Abel strides in from Right, shaking drops of water from his hands.

ABEL—

That water from the spring is the best I know ;

not brackish like the well.(Sits down) And old folk say

that if a young man stoops just at the noon hour

at summer's height to cup within his hand

cool water, he sees within mid pool a face

upturned to his for not so long a while

as the swallow's wing dimples a meadow stream ;

and those are eyes that will look kindly on him

when first he woos : and if he win that girl

for wedded wife, the high gods will not brook

the worst of human ills to baffle him.

(Gets up)

They talk that way.

(Walking Left)

I'd sooner see the salmon

ABEL—

leap the low waterfall. But if they bruise

their bodies in their frantic rush to breed

at the stream's head, where scarce their scales gain cover

from midday sun, what drives them into pain ?

SIBYL—

Stemming the dark ward flow of tribal wont,

all human kin, in blindness, seek to find

some trace of their heart's dream.

ABEL-

What dream?

SIBYL—

Upon the parapet of their high tower

the gods of Morning set a crystal vase

filled with the nectar of Supernal Love.

Then Fate was veiled behind a happy chance,

spilling the liquid ruby of the vase

which, havened in mortal hearts, made such bright dream

as earth-folk call first love, belittling it

because its. child-small hands may wax and quell

the bestial olden ness of herded ill.

ABEL—

Last night I was in dream on that high tower,

Brilliant with gems of fire and living light ;

but then I woke and my two eyes were aching

The hum of insects' wings, her tales of dream

and my thronged memories leave me amazed,

bewilder me to sleep .

(He falls asleep. THE SIBYL re-enters.)

SIBYL—

So now through noonlit 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.

TIME—

After midnight.

PLACE—

A flat stretch of rock at the water's edge, with sand or pebbles

at the very front of the stage. The background shows a sea

over which a setting moon still hangs. Far back on the Left

is a long-abandoned boat, now only a skeleton with bare ribs

sticking up. To Right and near the front of the stage, a

sand dune with sparse withered-looking grass. Mara is seen

standing a little to the left of midst age, facing Right.

MARA—

(chanting as if in loud complaint)

Wisdom is not yet. The moon is ripe for setting.

Grief is all I die with—for this earth's forgetting.

I have plucked the water-lilies, and they wither :

There are no lilies on the sea doom surging hither

SAGE—

(entering from RIGHT)

What is your search ?

MARA—

There is none left to me .

SAGE—

Whence is the music which has built this world

of secret moon and far-off silver sea,.

with opal foam a child's length from our feet ?

MARA—

It seems to make some song whose tune I had

—I never knew the words.

SAGE—

As words make dark

the light love's music brings. Cast now your thought

to when your wooer gained a smile from you.

MARA—

It comes as if entangled with the moon's light

in a drift of opal foam. The song's own tune

I helped unwittingly to build.

SAGE—

You hold

the clue to all that's lovely in the world.

MARA—

Then I may follow beauty.

And as the calm moon's radiance I would sink

beneath the westward striving and unrest

of the salt sea . Frail beauty whispers there.

Here the cracked rocks remind me of the bones

within; and dune-grass mocks my shrivelled hair.

(a short pause)

I stand upon the edge of used-up things,

and gaze upon far symboling of Love

whose music summons me beyond the world.

(falls dead)

TIME—

Early evening.

PLACE—

A stony desert. To Right a stunted low-growing shrub or

cactus. On the Left piled up rocks leave an entrance to a

cave. The background consists of low undulating sand

hills, above which the sky is flooded with the red light of

sunset. Cain enters from Right, slowly and with a limp.

CAIN—

How arid is the laughter I must show

when I meet goatherds on the desert fringe.

There is not herbage here for twenty goats

in half a day. I'm rid of laughter now ;

and time these rocks were rid of me.

SYBIL—

(entering RIGHT)

What fare?

CAIN—

I knew the answer once.

SYBIL—

And now you plan-

CAIN—

Yes, to be quit of plans. We cannot draw

circles that truly meet and leave no wound

where they, once young, grow old.

SYBIL—

But love 's elixir

is proved, or held, or sought to give such aid.

CAIN—

Proved., sought., aid. This ruby pool

of failing light is all that's left of day.

And ruby means—not strife alone,

but lips that cancel hurt by symbol-kiss,

and every beacon of each dream ward way

that seeks its centre in the heart.

(a pause)

Now all-day-gathered wisdom slides from Time

whose dome grows dark.

I knew a-tower-top once in that Spring morning

—dreamt to the ultimate source of living dream.

(a short pause)

My eyes are aching " in this rock-cumbered cave

I will Find sleep. waterless. I do not think

my mortal eyes will wake again

(slowly enters cave on LEFT)

Sometime beyond the woven weaned

Lures and down falling

The golden arc shall shoot from silver bowstring

Its arrowy music, calling,

Calling forth old earth-beholden memories

Of where-the-gods wone story

Till men's feet light on gems that are life-giving

And eyes grow rich with glory.

No memories can die if love-begotten

Nor dim their flame :

These to men's hearts were spilled in a ruby cadence

And from high ramparts came.

The godlike forms in that perpetual dawning

Laid the nectar down which yields

The wisdom of love ; a benign chance shed it dark ward

Like dew on stubborn fields.

The hidden dream shall be a touchstone proving

Worth and unworth,

And be the last alembic in the gloomtide

Distilling hopes to birth.

Some when the sullen Sorrow shall be pierced,

That arrow-song be heard,

The Name Unknown be spelt,—each love devising

One letter of the Word.

VOICE—

" O my father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from

me : nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt."

SIX—

A stable-cave, the dark solstice of the year

Enclosed the birth cry. Haste wise another cave

Four walled, wherein was never man yet laid,

Four walled, wherein was never man yet laid.

Awaits the prey of Darkness. So involved

In shadow's shadow, the clear creative Light

Tapered to heedless clod, no conscious trace

Of heavenly fellowship aglimmer there.

VOICE—

" Hallowed be thy name."

Oneness and bliss and knowledge, God's own being—

That was the sacrificial bread His hands

Took, brake, gave, and therewith formed

Such myriad splendours in a living world

Maimed and one half laid waste by will's revolt.

VOICE—

" I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until

that day when J drink it new with you in my Father's

kingdom."

Sadly the vultures gather and the hooded crow

Lours, curdles to coal-black wing the flap of doom.

Surely no scent remains with hillside flowers

In this too menacing air. And all around

Have pressed the sullen and the mocking and the sad.

VOICE—

" Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

VOICE—

"Thy Kingdom come."

FIVE—

A tower of thieves was taken and destroyed.

The youngest of them, generous at heart,

Cruel but from heedlessness and high excess

Of passion, reckless of odds or bitter death,—

That youth was justly doomed by social law.

A falcon dear to God, a mettlesome boy

Singing exultant in the heart of God.

For God is Joy, and Ruler ship, and Power,

And Life Abundant and the Tune of Time.

VOICE—

" And they were astonished at his doctrine : for his

word was with power."

But some have said, 'O, all is miracle,'

And others, ' that the word Creation spoke

Shall not retract, deceive, prevaricate,'

We live in the Sixth Day of Genesis ;

The onward flowing washes round our feet ;

The winding music hovers on new theme—

Which theme distorting tongue and brain will dub

As miracle. And yet our noblest men

Sweeten and purify the air, selfless

In service of that Temple of their Science

We are unworthy of; for they disclose

The Thing That Is—and not the things men dream.

Most dear to God the bravest and most free,

Who will not suck the myrrh and vinegar

Of comfortable words they have not earned,

But—being near God—can see all bleak, and smile.

VOICE—

" Today shalt thou be with me in Paradise."

VOICE—

" Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth."

THREE—

Sunrise may come tomorrow on olive groves,

But there is One who shall not look again

On earthly sun or moon. His inward eye

Is fixed on some mysterious crescent's ray—

An orb whose waxing is His Father's Will.

VOICE—

" Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his right

eousness, and all these things shall be added unto you."

There, there, within, the Kingdom would unfold

The shape of splendour and the taintless hue.

Leaven, or mustard seed, or crops of corn,

Each one He saw by not-of-this-world Light.

He gauged the poised run of living things,

The delicate rhythm of a lily bud,

And taught how joy comes leaping through unbid

If that inward Spirit-Moon be gazed upon.

By inward rhythm of that waxing moon

His Power could heal the sick, allay the pangs

Of thirst or hunger or wound. But not for Him

Is any balm while His heroic strength

Wrestles with earthly wrong, while with stern heel

He bruises the dragon's head. Unfaltering

He proffers all at the white and silvered shrine.

VOICE—

&quot I thirst."

VOICE—

" If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will

he give him a stone ? Or if he shall ask an egg, will

he offer him a scorpion ?"

The stones and scorpions are the worldly lore ;

The wise-with-this-world's-wisdom grow like them :

There is another seeking and a different food.

VOICE—

" Seek and ye shall find ; knock and it shall be opened unto you."

The earth gives harvest from its virgin womb :

The heart of man is hungry and adores,

The ear of man is wistful for the sound,

Of Truth Incarnate ; outstretching empty hands

He craves the boon of wisdom gathered up

From earth re-purified. Vast discipline

That puts the brush within the painters grasp

And thrusts out all divided aim, till he

Finds Colour work with him its perfect will.

Can less be needed when the aim is more ?

Assembled in the Hall of Mysteries

The purified have entered in the womb

Of All-Unknowingness ; their fingers feel

Annihilation's speartip that is crowned

With zero and the void ; un wondering eyes

Bestare unhue, unshape, unany thing ;

And ears of sleep hark numbly to the nought.

VOICE—

" When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons

of God shouted for joy."

The newly born. And a world reborn with him.

The morning stars are singing still together :

His quickened life, akin to them, is one

With every gleaming colour, self-entire

Of rainbow, flower newly budded, flashing foam.

From interfusion with all other life

He grows to Truth ; and Truth shall set him free.

VOICE—

" This is my commandment, that ye love one another, even

as I have loved you."

Truth timeless, Love endless, Beauty incorruptible,

Where are the empty husks of this world's lore ?

The Prodigal has found his way to home ;

The child of earth, by dint of his long toil

Has now become the Learner, feels the calm

Of far-off heavens, mirrors of the Truth.

VOICE—

" Woman, behold thy son !. Behold, thy mother !"

VOICE—

" And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our

debtors."

NINE—

The prayer that stubborn lips will not pronounce,

Must lips Divine be tortured to recite ?

And if one robber will not come near Christ,

Must Christ gain to him through far Night of hell ?

Darkness too deep for any plumbing line,

Beyond our wisdom and our sympathy,

Dread sphinx of Fate, cold ultimate of Time.

Not even blossoms of most deathly black

Are visible. No bird, no shadowy bat

Can stir with wing this heavy-hanging air.

All sound must die into this loneliness,

This anti-work,—reversal of the plan

That was the living energy of God,i

Signed with His seal, the All-Compassionate.

VOICE—

" My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me ?"

VOICE—

" Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground, and die, it

abideth alone : but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit."

FOUR—

The answer to all anguish, the goal of seeking

Soon to be uttered by the lips Divine.

Now is Truth's pilgrim at the altar step

Bereft of all that harnessed him to ill

Saving his own self-will; he can no more

By the Grace-guided human power ; he feels

The flaming Love that mounts beyond the world.

He is the arrow fitted to the bow

Of flashing hue, and by his self-oblation

The bow is bent, the shaft of leaping fire

Burns through the middle air, is lost to view

In vista'd zeniths of the Formless Goal.

There, in subsistent calm, the Light of Lights

Is all in all. No lures can touch the will

That is no longer mortal but divine.

VOICE—

"And dring us not temptation. "

The anodyne, the gall and vinegar

Long since rejected by the lips of Him

Who shall in this still hour on Calvary

Make known the secret at the core of love.

VOICE—

"Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. "

VOICE—

" It is finished."

SEVEN—

O now the Veil is rent, and all is Light.

From Love's last wound withdraws the uplifted spear,

And the full tale of Five is set upon

Perfection's Form ; so with lone power of Five

That Kingdom is brought near ; so the spear's wound

Breaches the wall of heaven, and Life descends

Kindling tomb-dust of earth to holy clay

And the New Adam newly wrought from it

Is life abundant, light of shining gold

So lit with power that earthly suns grow dark.

VOICE—

" Deliver us from evil."

" For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he

shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though

after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my

flesh shall I see God." -

As motion runs too fleet to catch the eve,

All the six days that held creative power

Are blent in one supreme white resting-place

Of Love's completeness ; the All-Beautiful

Speaks but the word that lies between high cliffs

Of sound as yet unheard by the ear of men,

Where in a pool without a whispered breeze

Aeons of stillness mirror God to God.

BLESSINGS—

The moving sinews have been cut from strife.

Forgiveness has been uttered sevenfold.

Now self is slain, whose form is Death, and Life

Is made One Everlasting.