Poems By Arjava

IF on your living features I may gaze,

I'll find each moment fresh similitude.

Some shifting from a boy's to manhood's ways.

Or rippling from a grave to sportive mood.

Yet on a pictured surface there is fixed

A flashing contact with Eternity,

The single point where Time the Pilgrim mixed

Dim toilsome path and trend of sanctity.

And greatly so when your fair nature prints

Vigour and generous love and quiet repose

(Much else unseizable the likeness hints

To eyes not callous and a heart not blind). ....

Tapers of aspiration mar less rose,

Fronting those features in a fane of mind.