Poems By Arjava

The High-Flashing Fountains Of Song

[Dedicated to MADAME MILLER of Vienna. Written immediately after hearing her sing some songs of MOZART, CHOPIN and others.']

SUBDUED the light at the gray evenhush,

As the shadowy helmets of night's vague-host

Make dim the East and the North and the South.

Spendthrift day keeps but a dwindling heap of gold

Low on the westward margins of the sky.

Spirit with wings of light and darkness

Sail through the fast-closing gates of the West

And bear me out of the world ;

The world that is frozen music (but the performers were faulty).

Haply the high-flashing fountains of song

Play still in Supernal Eden

And the air is a diamond undimmed by Time's misadventures. .

The unchanging light of the One, enmeshed in the murmuring spray,

Builds all the colours of the soul.

And the speechless telling of mysteries

Leaves them in the song-hidden heart of Light.

February 27, 1937.