Poems By Arjava

SWIFT lord of the golden arrow-flight,

Splendour-limbs we sought as in a dream.

Our closeness to the Uncreated Light,

Wideness-Truth and Purity supreme.

The giants of night are battle-fled,

Noisome clouds are wrested from the slough ;

Immortal flame-glow is about Thy head,

Honey-pale the stillness of Thy brow.

A moment, poise-mirrored, tokens Thee,—

Guise of neck and arching of his wing

Enlimned on the faultless ripple-free

Sheen of light where swan hood is the king.

White shrine near the sacred laurel boughs,

Marble quest of Timelessness adored,

From Night's bitter ocean hastening prows,

Urged to thee, come visionary-oared.

When guardians of cities, wisdom-fast,

Freed the gates of Beauty for the soul,

On vision-splendoured days where Thou had passed

Broke what gale of strangeness from the Whole !

Thy body is a song that never palls,

Singing thoughts Thy sandals on the way ;

Across Thy limbs no shadow vesture falls—

Bright beyond thralled reckoning of clay.