Poems By Arjava

(CANTO VIII, STANZA XXII)

OFFSPRING of Earth- shall somewhere pierce the Night,

Some when these boughs will gleam with petalled stars,

Healed be the gaping dark to woundless Light

And rid the face of Youth of threat of scars.

There was, ere wings of Life were joined to Earth,

Ere seeds of hope were sown within her tomb,

Irreparable Age—no other birth,

Undying Death—a gloom within a gloom.

I, like that Earth in lack of life, alone

Might ever thread a dim unlustred way,

Lacking your smile of welcome, joy of mind,

And all the clean bright flame of you : who else am blind

Now see the page you light, hear Shelley say :—

" The past is Death's, the future is thine own."