"COULD TIME'S ADVANCING LEAVE BUT SLENDER SCREEN " COULD Time's advancing leave but slender screen Before I sit beside you, hear you speak, How swift these gloomy skies would be swept clean, How deft a motion gained by wheels that creak ! In dreams your voice is known, with hated end Of solitary waking to an unshared light,-— Most bitter mirage that will never blend With nearness deemed, the certainties of sight. Days come. . are worthless pebbles thrown aside By one who searches on the shelving years For that sole diamond who shall glint and guide Because the continuing beauty that it bears Is li

VISION OF THE LETHE-DRINKER IN a garden that had fallen out of Time The pristine lily grew, Beside a stream ; and roses in their prime, Braziers of ruby, had embalmed the air Through which no wing of darkening sorrow flew,— But humming-birds, dream-hovering everywhere, Had fled the tear-wet rainbow bough of Time. December 8, 1934 Page-107

UPON THE MOUNTAIN TOPS WHITE upon the mountain tops The snow lies dreamily ; What phantom, farmer wins his crops ? What ploughshare scores the sky? White misty horses draw the plough ; And hands impalpable Keep furrow true—while starry bough Strews fruit ineffable. October 23, 1936. Page-224

GATEWAY OF THE DAWN TURN to the inscape of turquoise ; Be one with the unicorn : And gain with bared feet the shrine way of renewal Through the pearl-hush of dawn. Gather blue lotus at moonrise And with colours un guessed at strew That sunward path the unicorns are keeping In the pearl-pale dew ; Matchless their worship and un veering, Their arrow-perfect flight Beyond the last dim barriers of morning, Unencumbered by the night. Greet from the quiet gateway Of that hilltop shrine The unimaged splendour of new day-birth,— Heart's un beleaguered shine ! April 21, 193

FIRE-WATER-AIR [Based on the occult teaching about the Elements, that Air reconciles the disharmony between Fire and Water —just as, physically, vapour is engendered by the contact of heat with moisture.] NIGHT with mustered star-flares harries Moisture and dark : Lo, lightless earth with sun-flame marries When bids the lark. Night her load of star-tears carried— A sacrificial dew. Was not silver mist with the bright gold married When the dawn-winds blew ? Did the thrusts of air the star-spears parry Spring from Night's lip ? O let not Morning's whiteness tarry— Sail-bright ship.

LION DORE'ET RAMPANT WHAT is the fabric of that flag ? And with what tincture dyed ? O fadeless gold within time-slag, O taint-proof silver tide. Beyond the frontiers of one life Those folds are waving still To gleam down weary leagues of strife, Flame certitudes of will! April 5, 1934. Page-68

A WISH Fore speech BEFORE the sun goes down And the dark's waterfall Swarthily sprinkles quiet Beyond recall, Bestow one just true thought For these words not overlong (Night knows no countervailing, Nor any song). Firedrake A flinder of old folklore Tells of a shooting star, How wishes of a man who spies it No ill-haps mar. Since hearing of that legend Each firedrake that I see Goes fraught with wishes for your thriving And supremacy. O would that through your life's welkin I like the star could slide, Twine for each breath and every heart-

DAWN-RISE OVER SEA FINALE comes to thoughtful night's superb Slow symphony, not meant for mortal ears ; (These can but sense sea-sighings, listeners' tears, The whispered undertones of tree and herb, Plaudits of frog, brief scufflings that disturb.) From sky-vast score sheet graven by the years Slowly each jewelled star-note disappears, Darkened by light which longer will not curb Long gathering eagerness to limn the red And golden dado over eastern sea ; Then—heralding noon's opening far ahead— Peeps up a crimson tip of peony. Young day, a well-knit youth, swings up the skies, Known by soft vo

THE EVER-INSISTENT TAKE up your pen, O Man, Write on the book of earth : , " Beginning less I ran On through increasing worth. There was a page of wonder, Then many empty of joy,— The castings-up of plunder, Of skills that I misemploy Beyond the smoking cities, The callous pomps of war, Still troubling were the ditties Of the better days before— How hate was still nurtured by love, And the lies were the shadows of truth : Where were Death save there live things enough, What were Eld uningrafted on youth ? Those towers that ring Perfection No vista

WEAVING THEIR TRANCE-WHITE MEASURE THE banners of silence are drifting On the sound less winds of the world : And the dint of day is lifting ; With dream are the wont-ways pearled. With a lift of feathery silence The dream-steps of Laelia glide Into the heart of the gloom-stead Washed by a shadowy tide Where the waves of the darkening moment Beat time to a drowsy tune, Weaving their trance-white measure Under the moon. May 23, 1937. Page-282