night

Jaya Surya

GOLDEN sun of victory, born
In my life's unclouded morn,
In my lambent sky of love,
May your growing glory prove
Sacred to your consecration,
To my heart and to my nation.
Sun of victory, may you be
Sun of song and liberty.

Padmaja

Lotus-maiden, you who claim
All the sweetness of your name,
Lakshmi, fortune's queen, defend you,
Lotus-born like you, and send you
Balmy moons of love to bless you,
Gentle joy-winds to caress you.

Brother, today I sit on the brick bench of the house,
where you make a bottomless emptiness.
I remember we used to play at this hour, and mama
caressed us: "But, sons..."

Now I go hide
as before, from all evening
lectures, and I trust you not to give me away.
Through the parlor, the vestibule, the corridors.
Later, you hide, and I do not give you away.
I remember we made ourselves cry,
brother, from so much laughing.

Miguel, you went into hiding
one night in August, toward dawn,

Sister of the first-born light,

Type of sorrowing gentleness!

Quivering mists in silv'ry dress
Float around thy features bright;
When thy gentle foot is heard,

From the day-closed caverns then

Wake the mournful ghosts of men,
I, too, wake, and each night-bird.

O'er a field of boundless span

Looks thy gaze both far and wide.

Raise me upwards to thy side!
Grant this to a raving man!
And to heights of rapture raised,

Let the knight so crafty peep

I.

Like to the sent'nel stars, I watch all night;
For still the grand round of your light
And glorious breast
Awake in me an east:
Nor will my rolling eyes ere know a west.

II.

Now on my down I'm toss'd as on a wave,
And my repose is made my grave;
Fluttering I lye,
Do beat my self and dye,
But for a resurrection from your eye.

III.

Ah, my fair murdresse! dost thou cruelly heal
With various pains to make me well?
Then let me be
Thy cut anatomie,

We both have our hands to give
Take mine I shall lead you afar

I have lived several times my face hasw changed
With every threshold I have crossed and every hand clasped Familial springtime was reborn
Keeping for itself and for me its perishable snow
Death and the betrothed
The future with five fingers clenched and letting go

My age always gave me
New reasons for living through others
For having the blood of man other's heart in mine

Oh the lucid fellow I was and that I am

I say not not Helios burns so strong,
I say he outshines the flickering sun
when your laughter's radiance falls on him there,
trembling before you;

the song draws the soul from my body, it
shakes me with wanting and fear, because when I
see you I arch to the stars and dissolving I
fade into darkness,

and now, like a mawkish boy, I stammer,
pale flame veins my flesh and my ears ring
crazy in chimes and night veils my eyes,
failing such brightness.

Languor, Catullus, destroys you. Look out!

O beauty doomed and perfect for an hour,
Leaping along the verge of death and night,
You show me dauntless Youth that went to fight
Four long years past, discovering pride and power.

You die but in our dreams, who watch you fall
Knowing that to-morrow you will dance again.
But not to ebbing music were they slain
Who sleep in ruined graves, beyond recall;
Who, following phantom-glory, friend and foe,
Into the darkness that was War must go;
Blind; banished from desire.
O mortal heart

When o'er the chords thy fingers stray,
My spirit leaves its mortal clay,
A statue there I stand;
Thy spell controls e'en life and death,
As when the nerves a living breath
Receive by Love's command! [1]

More gently zephyr sighs along
To listen to thy magic song;
The systems formed by heavenly love
To sing forever as they move,
Pause in their endless-whirling round
To catch the rapture-teeming sound;
'Tis for thy strains they worship thee,--
Thy look, enchantress, fetters me!

I. SPEAK NOW FOR PEACE


Lady of Light, and our best woman, and queen,
Stand now for peace, (though anger breaks your heart),
Though naught but smoke and flame and drowning is seen.

Lady of Light, speak, though you speak alone,
Though your voice may seem as a dove's in this howling flood,
It is heard to-night by every senate and throne.

Though the widening battle of millions and millions of men
Threatens to-night to sweep the whole of the earth,
Back of the smoke is the promise of kindness again.

Last Sunday night I read the saddening story
Of the unanswered love of fair Elaine,
The `faith unfaithful' and the joyless glory
Of Lancelot, `groaning in remorseful pain.'

I thought of all those nights in wintry weather,
Those Sunday nights that seem not long ago,
When we two read our Poet's words together,
Till summer warmth within our hearts did glow.

Ah, when shall we renew that bygone pleasure,
Sit down together at our Merlin's feet,
Drink from one cup the overflowing measure,