LE FLAMBEAU VIVANT (From Baudelaire) THEY cleave their way before me, Eyes of unearthly gleaming Some adept among Angels did erstwhile magnetise ; They cleave their way, these godlike brothers I am deeming My own brothers—diamonds of light beckoning my eyes. My pledge against grave sinning and all the hidden snares, They lead my footsteps in the path of Beauty's height ; They are to me as servants ; I am a slave of theirs : My whole self bears obedience to that torch's living light. Charm-weaving eyes who shine in lambent mystery. As sentinel candles in the clinquant glare of day, Bowed red by the sun, quench n

FULFILMENT THINE be the winds of devotion, Thine be the stars of flame,— Their whisper to echo that Music, Their outline to girdle the Name. The world is a shadowy motion,— The dream at the back of a dream, With days that faint echo the Footstep, And fields that wan-mirror the Gleam. Token re-mirrored in token, Sign that had echoed a sign,— Might our senses be net of the Hunter, Our thought-ways a fishing line. So with not one word spoken, So with nor ever a look To Beauty we're borne by the Hunter, To the soot hafts shore by the hook. July 7, 1935.

INCHOATE THROUGH a white-grey dawn the waves come rolling Almost with no sound ; Pale and phosphorescent gleam from streaks of foam On a far-stretching waste of waters. Like faltering steps of a young child, Trickles and drifts of air are felt— There is neither calm nor steady breeze, While tentative light glimmers in vague skies : The teeming star-blossoms dis petal one by one ; Night is everywhere momently withering into day. November 23, 1936. Page-240

FLOWING GREEN holm ; the rushy margin of a brook— A brimming trance-forgetfulness of Time, A burnished flow. Strewn petals of brooklime Lay on the stream. A wandering zephyr shook To dimples all that ecstasy of glass. Communing with the sky. The meadow-sweet Waved like a fragrant foam amid the grass And vague dim whirr of wing or insect's feet. March 25, 1938. Page-313

REJECTION WISDOM was a beggar maid Who brought a beechen bowl ; The fool bestowed much wealth he'd made— No shred nor ort of soul. Wisdom came upon a town Older than Nineveh, To find the folk fast pulling down Her throne, simplicity. Then priests a complex temple god In their vain image cast : But She still walked the ways unshod, Contemned and over passed. " Go gaze upon our lofty shrine, " They jeered at Her and yelled : One headlong rout of rushing swine Was all that She beheld. April 12, 1938. Page-317

DISCERNING I PUT out my hand and you will lead me Down the secret valley to a shore Thundered on by foam-spent former ages— Will the ship with a griffin beak be anchored as before? Someone loosed the cable of the present, Hoisted sail and steered the gleaming prow Through green-watered island-covered ocean— Landed on the coast—and cut the golden bough. Clear translucent leaves of golden glamour Wreathe the cloudy topaz of the fruit : What rune-encircled knife could safely sever From night's familiar grove that strangely dawning shoot ? November 20, 1934. Page-99

CITIES OF EDEN BEFORE a grey-white bank of mist, Shaped like a prison's wall, The guardians as of yore resist, Their fortress cannot fall. Across a blurred dissolving mist White pinnacles are seen,— Then shall the Future re-enlist The beauties that have been, And bring a white supremacy Of moon, a golden sun, Processional star majesty To cities half begun ? October 9, 1936. Page-213

THE DEBT SHATTER the manacles of self And set Love free, To leave no threat of dyke or delf 'Tween thou and me. And make the orts and shreds of Night, If Night must be, A nothing, through that single light I find in thee. As in the aftermath of storm Great calm we see, My ways reflect the zenith Form, Becalmed by thee. No hope to forge, through grateful gifts, Equality : I'd be the Gratefulness that lifts The spring to thee— One with the grey dawn's laugh that staves The dark from thee— Or surge with the golden-trance-lit waves

IMAGES O SPEAR of Love that great archangel wielded, O ship of Peace with that white sail unfurling, Speed, weapon-truth ; be Wrong no more beshielded: Glide on, O ship, through Time's all-hungry swirling. October 11, 1938. Page-328

PASSAGE A WHITE and alabaster colonnade, Lit by cressets deftly kid Column-high and in each nook Which the bats by night forsook. Ranged and ranked in double rows Plinth by plinth the long file goes From forgotten aeons dead To the unpublished days ahead. —All the thought-filled moods of man Down those flickering mind ways ran. May 15, 1935. Page-123