Poems By Arjava

Thyoneus

WHO has not wandered through the woods in Spring

Where ancient trees renew eternal youth

And tips of deathless joy the withered brown upfling

Under the skies of Truth ?

Glimpsed, past the maenad, the satyr, the midsummer flower,

A pine-wreath that circles brows calm, free from hurt,

And a greenness of cone-tipped wand and earth-exceeding Power.

—That thyrsus, ivy-girt ?

In Him are the sun's warmth and the tendrils twined

Where trust is sweet and friendship has no flaw ;

He brings peace to cities and greatening to the mind,

—Dionysus, giver of law.

Born from this earth's aspiring the Unborn Fire

Scathed and slew, Whom no finite's wounding mars,

By Whose unimagined glory is raised from her sorrow-pyre

Thyona among the stars.

November 29, 1933.