Poems By Arjava

TAKE up your pen, O Man,

Write on the book of earth : ,

" Beginning less I ran

On through increasing worth.

There was a page of wonder,

Then many empty of joy,—

The castings-up of plunder,

Of skills that I misemploy

Beyond the smoking cities,

The callous pomps of war,

Still troubling were the ditties

Of the better days before—

How hate was still nurtured by love,

And the lies were the shadows of truth :

Where were Death save there live things enough,

What were Eld uningrafted on youth ?

Those towers that ring Perfection

No vista leaves untraced,

And by each new rejection

Toward them still I faced.

For the flame-crests of perfect living

On the watch-towers of Time ever burned

—Still they drew all the heart's deepest giving.

And the Thought in our thoughts thither yearned."