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diff --git a/33792-h/33792-h.htm b/33792-h/33792-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d70d1e6 --- /dev/null +++ b/33792-h/33792-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1887 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ --> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Poems, by Alma Strettell.. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + + + +.bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + +.bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + +.bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + +.br {border-right: solid 2px;} + +.bbox {border: solid 2px;} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.u {text-decoration: underline;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.figleft { + float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 1em; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +.figright { + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-left: 1em; + margin-bottom: + 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 0; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + + + </style> + </head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 33792 ***</div> + +<h1>POEMS</h1> + +<h3>OF</h3> + +<h2>EMILE VERHAEREN.</h2> + +<h3>SELECTED</h3> + +<h3>AND</h3> + +<h3>RENDERED INTO ENGLISH</h3> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>ALMA STRETTELL.</h2> + + + +<h4>JOHN LANE</h4> +<h4>THE BODLEY HEAD</h4> +<h4>LONDON & NEW YORK</h4> +<h4>1915.</h4> + +<hr style="width: 95%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 345px;"> +<img src="images/verhaeren.jpg" width="345" alt="Emile Verhaeren" title="" /> +<span class="caption">Emile Verhaeren</span> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p> +<span class="caption">INDEX</span><br /> +<br /> +INTRODUCTORY NOTE<br /> +<br /> +From "LES VILLAGES ILLUSOIRES"<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#RAIN">RAIN</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_FERRYMAN">THE FERRYMAN</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_SILENCE">THE SILENCE</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_BELL-RINGER">THE BELL-RINGER</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_SNOW">THE SNOW</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_GRAVE-DIGGER">THE GRAVE-DIGGER</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_WIND">THE WIND</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_FISHERMEN">THE FISHERMEN</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_ROPE-MAKER">THE ROPE-MAKER</a><br /> +<br /> +From "LES HEURES CLAIRES"<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#I">I.</a><br /> +<a href="#VIII">VIII.</a><br /> +<a href="#XVII">XVII.</a><br /> +<a href="#XXI">XXI.</a><br /> +<br /> +From "LES APPARUS DANS MES CHEMINS"<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#ST_GEORGE">ST. GEORGE</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_GARDENS">THE GARDENS</a><br /> +<a href="#SHE_OF_THE_GARDEN">SHE OF THE GARDEN</a><br /> +<br /> +From "LA MULTIPLE SPLENDEUR"<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#THE_GLORY_OF_THE_HEAVENS">THE GLORY OF THE HEAVENS</a><br /> +<a href="#LIFE">LIFE</a><br /> +<a href="#JOY">JOY</a><br /> +</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h3>INTRODUCTORY NOTE.</h3> + + + +<p>Emile Verhaeren, remarkable among of the brilliant group of writers +representing "Young Belgium," and one who has been recognized by the +literary world of France as holding a foremost place among the lyric +poets of the day was born at St. Amand, near Antwerp, in 1855. His +childhood was passed on the banks of the Scheldt, in the midst of the +wide-spreading Flemish plains, a country of mist and flood, of dykes and +marshes, and the impressions he received from the mysterious, melancholy +character of these surroundings, have produced a marked and lasting +influence upon his work. Yet the other characteristics with which it is +stamped—the wealth of imagination, the gloomy force, the wonderful +descriptive power and sense of colour, which set the landscape before +one as a picture, suggest rather the possibility of Spanish blood in the +poet's veins—and again, his somewhat morbid subjectivity and tendency +to self-analysis mark him as the child of the latter end of our +nineteenth century.</p> + +<p>Verhaeren entered early in life upon the literary career. After some +time spent at a college in Ghent, he became a student at the University +of Louvain, and here he founded and edited a journal called "<i>La +Semaine</i>," in which work he was assisted by the singer Van Dyck, and by +his friend and present publisher, Edmond Deman. He also formed, about +this time, a close friendship with Maeterlinck. In 1881, Verhaeren was +called to the Bar at Brussels, but soon gave up his legal career to +devote himself entirely to literature. In 1883 he published his first +volume of poems, and shortly afterwards became one of the editors of +"<i>L'Art Moderne</i>," to which, as well as to other contemporary periodicals, +he was for many years a contributor. In 1892 he founded, with the help +of two other friends, the "Section of Art" in the "House of the People," +a popular institution in Brussels, where performances of the best music, +as well as lectures upon literary and artistic subjects, were given. In +spite, however, of the work which all this entailed, and of the many +interests created by his ardent appreciation of the various branches of +art and literature, Verhaeren continued to labour unceasingly at his +poetical work, and between 1883 and 1897 brought out successively eleven +small volumes: <i>Les Flamandes, Les Moines, Les Soirs, Les Débâcles, Les +Flambeaux Noirs, Les Apparus dans mes chemins, Les Campagnes +Hallucinées, Les Villages Illusoires, Les Villes Tentaculaires, Les +Heures Claires,</i> and <i>Les Aubes</i>.</p> + +<p>Throughout this entire series the intellectual and spiritual development +of the poet may be closely traced—from the materialism which pervades +<i>Les Flamandes</i>, and the despairing pessimism and lurid emotion—the +throes of a self-centred soul in revolt against fate—which are so +powerfully portrayed in <i>Les Débâcles</i> and <i>Les Flambeaux Noirs</i>, and are +apparent even in the opening pages of <i>Les Apparus</i> dans mes chemins—to +the tender, hopeful mysticism which marks the latter poems in that +volume, and the wonderful sympathy with Nature, even in her saddest +aspects—the subtle power of endowing those aspects with a profound and +ennobling symbolism, which characterise the most beautiful of the poems +in Les Villages Illusoires. Les Heures Claires is the name given to a +volume of love-songs, an exquisite record of golden hours spent in a +garden at spring-time—spring-time in a double sense.</p> + +<p>The task of making an adequate and typical selection from a poet's work +is always difficult, and in this case it has been decided to limit the +field of selection, at least for the present, to the three last-named +volumes, which embody what may, I think, be considered as Verhaeren's +highest achievement in the realm of lyrical poetry.</p> + + +<p>In style, Verhaeren is essentially the apostle of the "Vers libre"; and +his handling of rhyme and rhythm, his coining of words where he finds +the French vocabulary insufficient, have called down upon him some +criticism from those of his French contemporaries who are sticklers for +the older rules and more conventional forms of versification. But +however this may be, it remains an undeniable fact that Verhaeren has at +his command a rare and powerful poetic eloquence—a wealth of imagery, a +depth of thought and a subtlety of expression which perhaps are not to +be imprisoned behind the bars of a too rigid convention. English readers +have already been accustomed by their own poets to the "vers libre," and +it is not so much, therefore, for my adherence to this form, as for my +failure adequately to render Verhaeren's peculiar and striking beauty of +language, that I beg their indulgence for the following translations.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>POEMS</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p class="caption">From "LES VILLAGES ILLUSOIRES" +<br /></p> + + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><b><a name="RAIN" id="RAIN"></a>RAIN</b></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Long as unending threads, the long-drawn rain<br /> +Interminably, with its nails of grey,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Athwart the dull grey day,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Rakes the green window-pane—</span><br /> +So infinitely, endlessly, the rain,<br /> +The long, long rain.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 10em;">The rain.</span><br /> +<br /> +Since yesternight it keeps unravelling<br /> +Down from the frayed and flaccid rags that cling<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">About the sullen sky.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">The low black sky;</span><br /> +Since yesternight, so slowly, patiently.<br /> +Unravelling its threads upon the roads.<br /> +Upon the roads and lanes, with even fall<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 10em;">Continual.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Along the miles<br /> +That 'twixt the meadows and the suburbs lie,<br /> +By roads interminably bent, the files<br /> +Of waggons, with their awnings arched and tall.<br /> +Struggling in sweat and steam, toil slowly by<br /> +With outline vague as of a funeral.<br /> +Into the ruts, unbroken, regular,<br /> +Stretching out parallel so far<br /> +That when night comes they seem to join the sky.<br /> +For hours the water drips;<br /> +And every tree and every dwelling weeps.<br /> +Drenched as they are with it.<br /> +With the long rain, tenaciously, with rain<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 10em;">Indefinite.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The rivers, through each rotten dyke that yields.<br /> +Discharge their swollen wave upon the fields.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">Where coils of drownèd hay</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">Float far away;</span><br /> +And the wild breeze<br /> +Buffets the alders and the walnut-trees;<br /> +Knee-deep in water great black oxen stand,<br /> +Lifting their bellowings sinister on high<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">To the distorted sky;</span><br /> +As now the night creeps onward, all the land,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">Thicket and plain,</span><br /> +Grows cumbered with her clinging shades immense.<br /> +And still there is the rain,<br /> +The long, long rain.<br /> +Like soot, so fine and dense.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">The long, long rain.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">Rain—and its threads identical,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">And its nails systematical,</span><br /> +Weaving the garment, mesh by mesh amain,<br /> +Of destitution for each house and wall,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">And fences that enfold</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">The villages, neglected, grey, and old:</span><br /> +Chaplets of rags and linen shreds that fall<br /> +In frayed-out wisps from upright poles and tall.<br /> +Blue pigeon-houses glued against the thatch,<br /> +And windows with a patch<br /> +Of dingy paper on each lowering pane,<br /> +Houses with straight-set gutters, side by side<br /> +Across the broad stone gambles crucified,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Mills, uniform, forlorn.</span><br /> +Each rising from its hillock like a horn,<br /> +Steeples afar and chapels round about,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">The rain, the long, long rain,</span><br /> +Through all the winter wears and wears them out.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Rain, with its many wrinkles, the long rain</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">With its grey nails, and with its watery mane;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">The long rain of these lands of long ago,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">The rain, eternal in its torpid flow!</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><b><a name="THE_FERRYMAN" id="THE_FERRYMAN"></a>THE FERRYMAN</b></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The ferryman, a green reed 'twixt his teeth,<br /> +With hand on oar, against the current strong<br /> +Had rowed and rowed so long.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +But she, alas! whose voice was hailing him<br /> +Across the far waves dim.<br /> +Still further o'er the far waves seemed to float,<br /> +Still further backwards, 'mid the mists, remote.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The casements with their eyes.<br /> +The dial-faces of the towers that rise<br /> +Upon the shore,<br /> +Watched, as he strove and laboured more and more.<br /> +With frantic bending of the back in two,<br /> +And start of savage muscles strained anew.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +One oar was suddenly riven,<br /> +And by the current driven,<br /> +With lash of heavy breakers, out to sea.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +But she, whose voice that hailed him he could hear<br /> +There 'mid the mist and wind, she seemed to wring<br /> +Her hands with gestures yet more maddening<br /> +Toward him who drew not near.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The ferryman with his surviving oar<br /> +Fell harder yet to work, and more and more<br /> +He strove, till every joint did crack and start,<br /> +And fevered terror shook his very heart.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The rudder broke<br /> +Beneath one sharp, rude stroke;<br /> +That, too, the current drove relentlessly,<br /> +A dreary shred of wreckage, out to sea.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The casements by the pier,<br /> +Like eyes immense and feverish open wide,<br /> +The dials of the towers—those widows drear<br /> +Upstanding straight from mile to mile beside<br /> +The banks of rivers—obstinately gaze<br /> +Upon this madman, in his headstrong craze<br /> +Prolonging his mad voyage 'gainst the tide.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +But she, who yonder in the mist-clouds hailed<br /> +Him still so desperately, she wailed and wailed,<br /> +With head outstretched in fearful, straining haste<br /> +Toward the unknown of the outstretched waste.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Steady as one that had in bronze been cast,<br /> +Amid the blenched, grey tempest and the blast.<br /> +The ferryman his single oar yet plied.<br /> +And, spite of all, still lashed and bit the tide.<br /> +His old eyes, with hallucinated gaze,<br /> +Saw that far distance—an illumined haze—<br /> +Whence the voice sounded, coming toward him still.<br /> +Beneath the cold skies, lamentable, shrill.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The last oar broke—<br /> +And this the current hurried at one stroke,<br /> +Like a frail straw, towards the distant sea.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The ferryman, with arms dropped helplessly<br /> +Sank on his bench, forlorn.<br /> +His loins with vain efforts broken, torn.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Drifting, his barque struck somewhere, as by chance,<br /> +He turned a glance<br /> +Towards the bank behind him then—and saw<br /> +He had not left the shore.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The casements and the dials, one by one.<br /> +Their huge eyes gazing in a foolish stare.<br /> +Witnessed the ruin of his ardour there;<br /> +But still the old, tenacious ferryman<br /> +Firm in his teeth—for God knows when, indeed—<br /> +Held the green reed.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><b><a name="THE_SILENCE" id="THE_SILENCE"></a>THE SILENCE</b></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Ever since ending of the summer weather.<br /> +When last the thunder and the lightning broke,<br /> +Shatt'ring themselves upon it at one stroke,<br /> +The Silence has not stirred, there in the heather.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +All round about stand steeples straight as stakes,<br /> +And each its bell between its fingers shakes;<br /> +All round about, with their three-storied loads,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">The teams prowl down the roads;</span><br /> +All round about, where'er the pine woods end,<br /> +The wheel creaks on along its rutty bed,<br /> +But not a sound is strong enough to rend<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">That space intense and dead.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Since summer, thunder-laden, last was heard.<br /> +The Silence has not stirred;<br /> +And the broad heath-land, where the nights sink down<br /> +Beyond the sand-hills brown.<br /> +Beyond the endless thickets closely set,<br /> +To the far borders of the far-away.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Prolongs It yet.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Even the winds disturb not as they go<br /> +The boughs of those long larches, bending low<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Where the marsh-water lies,</span><br /> +In which Its vacant eyes<br /> +Gaze at themselves unceasing, stubbornly.<br /> +Only sometimes, as on their way they move,<br /> +The noiseless shadows of the clouds above.<br /> +Or of some great bird's hov'ring flight on high,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Brush It in passing by.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Since the last bolt that scored the earth aslant,<br /> +Nothing has pierced the Silence dominant.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Of those who cross Its vast immensity,<br /> +Whether at twilight or at dawn it be,<br /> +There is not one but feels<br /> +The dread of the Unknown that It instils;<br /> +An ample force supreme, It holds Its sway<br /> +Uninterruptedly the same for aye.<br /> +Dark walls of blackest fir-trees bar from sight<br /> +The outlook towards the paths of hope and light;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Huge, pensive junipers</span><br /> +Affright from far the passing travellers;<br /> +Long, narrow paths stretch their straight lines unbent.<br /> +Till they fork off in curves malevolent;<br /> +And the sun, ever shifting, ceaseless lends<br /> +Fresh aspects to the mirage whither tends<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Bewilderment</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Since the last bolt was forged amid the storm,<br /> +The polar Silence at the corners four<br /> +Of the wide heather-land has stirred no more.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Old shepherds, whom their hundred years have worn<br /> +To things all dislocate and out of gear,<br /> +And their old dogs, ragged, tired-out, and torn.<br /> +Oft watch It, on the soundless lowlands near,<br /> +Or downs of gold beflecked with shadows' flight,<br /> +Sit down immensely there beside the night.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Then, at the curves and corners of the mere.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">The waters creep with fear;</span><br /> +The heather veils itself, grows wan and white;<br /> +All the leaves listen upon all the bushes,<br /> +And the incendiary sunset hushes<br /> +Before Its face his cries of brandished light.<br /> +And in the hamlets that about It lie.<br /> +Beneath the thatches of their hovels small<br /> +The terror dwells of feeling It is nigh.<br /> +And, though It stirs not, dominating all.<br /> +Broken with dull despair and helplessness,<br /> +Beneath Its presence they crouch motionless,<br /> +As though upon the watch—and dread to see.<br /> +Through rifts of vapour, open suddenly<br /> +At evening, in the moon, the argent eyes<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Of Its mute mysteries.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><b><a name="THE_BELL-RINGER" id="THE_BELL-RINGER"></a>THE BELL-RINGER</b></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Yon, in the depths of the evening's track,<br /> +Like a herd of blind bullocks that seek their fellows,<br /> +Wild, as in terror, the tempest bellows.<br /> +And suddenly, there, o'er the gables black<br /> +That the church, in the twilight, around it raises<br /> +All scored with lightnings the steeple blazes.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +See the old bell-ringer, frenzied with fear.<br /> +Mouth gaping, yet speechless, draw hastening near.<br /> +And the knell of alarm that with strokes of lead<br /> +He rings, heaves forth in a tempest of dread<br /> +The frantic despair that throbs in his head.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +With the cross at the height<br /> +Of its summit brandished, the lofty steeple<br /> +Spreads the crimson mane<br /> +Of the fire o'er the plain<br /> +Toward the dream-like horizons that bound the night;<br /> +The city nocturnal is filled with light;<br /> +The face of the swift-gathered crowds doth people<br /> +With fears and with clamours both street and lane;<br /> +On walls turned suddenly dazzling bright<br /> +The dusky panes drink the crimson flood<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Like draughts of blood.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Yet, knell upon knell, the old ringer doth cast<br /> +His frenzy and fear o'er the country vast.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The steeple, it seems to be growing higher<br /> +Against the horizon that shifts and quivers,<br /> +And to be flying in gleams of fire<br /> +Far o'er the lakes and the swampy rivers.<br /> +Its slates, like wings<br /> +Of sparks and spangles, afar it flings.<br /> +They fly toward the forests across the night:<br /> +And in their passage the fires exhume<br /> +The hovels and huts from their folds of gloom,<br /> +Setting them suddenly all alight.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +In the crashing fall of the steeple's crown<br /> +The cross to the brazier's depth drops down,<br /> +Where, twisted and torn in the fiery fray,<br /> +Its Christian arms are crushed like prey.<br /> +With might and main<br /> +The bell-ringer sounds his knell abroad.<br /> +As though the flames would burn his God.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The fire<br /> +Funnel-like hollows its way yet higher,<br /> +'Twixt walls of stone, up the steeple's height;<br /> +Gaining the archway and lofty stage<br /> +Where, swinging in light, the bell bounds with rage.<br /> +The daws and the owls, with wild, long cry<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Pass screeching by;</span><br /> +On the fast-closed casements their heads they smite,<br /> +Burn in the smoke-drifts their pinions light,<br /> +Then, broken with terror and bruised with flight.<br /> +Suddenly, 'mid the surging crowd.<br /> +Fall dead outright.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The old man sees toward his brandished bells<br /> +The climbing fire<br /> +With hands of boiling gold stretch nigher.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The steeple<br /> +Looks like a thicket of crimson bushes,<br /> +With here a branch of flame that rushes<br /> +Darting the belfry boards between;<br /> +Convulsed and savage flames, they cling,<br /> +With curves that plant-like curl and lean.<br /> +Round every joist, round every pulley,<br /> +And monumental beams, whence ring<br /> +The bells, that voice forth frenzied folly.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +His fear and anguish spent, the ringer<br /> +Sounds his own knell<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">On his ruined bell.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +A final crash,<br /> +All dust and plaster in one grey flash,<br /> +Cleaves the whole steeple's height in pieces;<br /> +And like some great cry slain, it ceases<br /> +All on a sudden, the knell's dull rage.<br /> +The ancient tower<br /> +Seems sudden to lean and darkly lower;<br /> +While with heavy thuds, as from stage to stage<br /> +They headlong bound.<br /> +The bells are heard<br /> +Plunging and crashing towards the ground.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +But yet the old ringer has never stirred.<br /> +And, scooping the moist earth out, the bell<br /> +Was thus his coffin, and grave as well.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><b><a name="THE_SNOW" id="THE_SNOW"></a>THE SNOW</b></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Uninterruptedly falls the snow,<br /> +Like meagre, long wool-strands, scant and slow,<br /> +O'er the meagre, long plain disconsolate.<br /> +Cold with lovelessness, warm with hate.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Infinite, infinite falls the snow.<br /> +Like a moment's time.<br /> +Monotonously, in a moment's time;<br /> +On the houses it falls and drops, the snow.<br /> +Monotonous, whitening them o'er with rime;<br /> +It falls on the sheds and their palings below.<br /> +And myriad-wise, it falls and lies<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">In ridgèd waves</span><br /> +In the churchyard hollows between the graves.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The apron of all inclement weather<br /> +Is roughly unfastened, there on high;<br /> +The apron of woes and misery<br /> +Is shaken by wind-gusts violently<br /> +Down on the hamlets that crouch together<br /> +Beneath the dull horizon-sky.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The frost creeps down to the very bones,<br /> +And want creeps in through the walls and stones;<br /> +Yea, snow and want round the souls creep close,<br /> +—The heavy snow diaphanous—<br /> +Round the stone-cold hearths and the flameless souls<br /> +That wither away in their huts and holes.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The hamlets bare<br /> +White, white as Death lie yonder, where<br /> +The crookèd roadways cross and halt;<br /> +Like branching traceries of salt<br /> +The trees, all crystallized with frost,<br /> +Stretch forth their boughs, entwined and crost.<br /> +Along the ways, as on they go<br /> +In far procession o'er the snow.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Then here and there, some ancient mill,<br /> +Where light, pale mosses aggregate,<br /> +Appears on a sudden, standing straight<br /> +Like a snare upon its lonely hill.<br /> +The roofs and sheds, down there below.<br /> +Since November dawned, have been wrestling still,<br /> +In contrary blasts, with the hurricane;<br /> +While, thick and full, yet falls amain<br /> +The infinite snow, with its weary weight,<br /> +O'er the meagre, long plain disconsolate.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Thus journeys the snow afar so fleet.<br /> +Into every cranny, on every trail;<br /> +Always the snow and its winding-sheet,<br /> +The mortuary snow so pale.<br /> +The snow, unfruitful and so pale.<br /> +In wild and vagabond tatters hurled<br /> +Through the limitless winter of the world.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><b><a name="THE_GRAVE-DIGGER" id="THE_GRAVE-DIGGER"></a>THE GRAVE-DIGGER</b></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +In the garden yonder of yews and death,<br /> +There sojourneth<br /> +A man who toils, and has toiled for aye.<br /> +Digging the dried-up ground all day.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Some willows, surviving their own dead selves.<br /> +Weep there around him as he delves.<br /> +And a few poor flowers, disconsolate<br /> +Because the tempest and wind and wet<br /> +Vex them with ceaseless scourge and fret.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The ground is nothing but pits and cones,<br /> +Deep graves in every corner yawn;<br /> +The frost in the winter cracks the stones,<br /> +And when the summer in June is born<br /> +One hears, 'mid the silence that pants for breath,<br /> +The germinating and life of Death<br /> +Below, among the lifeless bones.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Since ages longer than he can know,<br /> +The grave-digger brings his human woe,<br /> +That never wears out, and lays its head<br /> +Slowly down in that earthy bed.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +By all the surrounding roads, each day<br /> +They come towards him, the coffins white,<br /> +They come in processions infinite;<br /> +They come from the distances far away.<br /> +From corners obscure and out-of-the-way.<br /> +From the heart of the towns—and the wide-spreading<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">plain.</span><br /> +The limitless plain, swallows up their track;<br /> +They come with their escort of people in black.<br /> +At every hour, till the day doth wane;<br /> +And at early dawn the long trains forlorn<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Begin again.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The grave-digger hears far off the knell,<br /> +Beneath weary skies, of the passing bell,<br /> +Since ages longer than he can tell.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Some grief of his each coffin carrieth—<br /> +His wild desires toward evenings dark with death<br /> +Are here: his mournings for he knows not what:<br /> +Here are his tears, for ever on this spot<br /> +Motionless in their shrouds: his memories.<br /> +With gaze worn-out from travelling through the years<br /> +So far, to bid him call to mind the fears<br /> +Of which their souls are dying—and with these<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 7em;">Lies side by side</span><br /> +The shattered body of his broken pride.<br /> +His heroism, to which nought replied,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 7em;">Is here all unavailing;</span><br /> +His courage, 'neath its heavy armour failing.<br /> +And his poor valour, gashed upon the brow.<br /> +Silent, and crumbling in corruption now.<br /> +The grave-digger watches them come into sight,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 7em;">The long, slow roads.</span><br /> +Marching towards him, with all their loads<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 7em;">Of coffins white.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Here are his keenest thoughts, that one by one<br /> +His lukewarm soul hath tainted and undone;<br /> +And his white loves of simple days of yore,<br /> +in lewd and tempting mirrors sullied o'er;<br /> +The proud, mute vows that to himself he made<br /> +Are here—for he hath scored and cancelled them,<br /> +As one may cut and notch a diadem;<br /> +And here, inert and prone, his will is laid,<br /> +Whose gestures flashed like lightning keen before.<br /> +But that he now can raise in strength no more.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The grave-digger digs to the sound of the knell<br /> +'Mid the yews and the deaths in yonder dell.<br /> +Since ages longer than he can tell.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Here is his dream—born in the radiant glow.<br /> +Of joy and young oblivion, long ago—<br /> +That in black fields of science he let go,<br /> +That he hath clothed with flame and embers bright,<br /> +—Red wings plucked off from Folly in her flight—<br /> +That he hath launched toward inaccessible<br /> +Spaces afar, toward the distance there,<br /> +The golden conquest of the Impossible,<br /> +And that the limitless, refractory sky,<br /> +Sends back to him again, or it has ere<br /> +So much as touched the immobile mystery.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The grave-digger turneth it round and round—<br /> +With arms by toil so weary made,<br /> +With arms so thin, and strokes of spade—<br /> +Since what long times?—the dried-up ground.<br /> +Here, for his anguish and remorse, there throng<br /> +Pardons denied to creatures in the wrong;<br /> +And here, the tears, the prayers, the silent cries,<br /> +He would not list to in his brothers' eyes.<br /> +The insults to the gentle, and the jeer<br /> +What time the humble bent their knees, are here;<br /> +Gloomy denials, and a bitter store<br /> +Of arid sarcasms, oft poured out before<br /> +Devotedness that in the shadow stands<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">With outstretched hands.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The grave-digger, weary, yet eager as well.<br /> +Hiding his pain to the sound of the knell,<br /> +With strokes of the spade turns round and round<br /> +The weary sods of the dried-up ground.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Then—fear-struck dallyings with suicide;<br /> +Delays, that conquer hours that would decide:<br /> +Again—the terrors of dark crime and sin<br /> +Furtively felt with frenzied fingers thin:<br /> +The fierce craze and the fervent rage to be<br /> +The man who lives of the extremity<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 7em;">Of his own fear:</span><br /> +And then, too, doubt immense and wild affright.<br /> +And madness, with its eyes of marble white,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 7.5em;">These all are here.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +His head a prey to the dull knell's sound,<br /> +In terror the grave-digger turns the ground<br /> +With strokes of the spade, and doth ceaseless cast<br /> +The dried-up earth upon his past.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The slain days, and the present, he doth see,<br /> +Quelling each quivering thrill of life to be.<br /> +And drop by drop, through fists whose fingers start.<br /> +Pressing the future blood of his red heart;<br /> +Chewing with teeth that grind and crush, each part<br /> +Of that his future's body, limb by limb,<br /> +Till there is but a carcase left to him;<br /> +And shewing him, in coffins prisoned,<br /> +Or ever they be born, his longings dead.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The grave-digger yonder doth hear the knell,<br /> +More heavy yet, of the passing bell.<br /> +That up through the mourning horizons doth swell<br /> +What if the bells, with their haunting swing,<br /> +Would stop on a day that heart-breaking ring!<br /> +And the endless procession of corse after corse.<br /> +Choke the highways no more of his long remorse<br /> +But the biers, with the prayers and the tears,<br /> +Immensely yet follow the biers;<br /> +They halt by crucifix now, and by shrine,<br /> +Then take up once more their mournful line;<br /> +On the backs of men, upon trestles borne.<br /> +They follow their uniform march forlorn;<br /> +Skirting each field and each garden-wall.<br /> +Passing beneath the sign-posts tall,<br /> +Skirting along by the vast Unknown,<br /> +Where terror points horns from the corner-stone.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The old man, broken and propless quite.<br /> +Watches them still from the infinite<br /> +Coming towards him—and hath beside<br /> +Nothing to do, but in earth to hide<br /> +His multiple death, thus bit by bit,<br /> +And, with fingers irresolute, plant on it<br /> +Crosses so hastily, day by day,<br /> +Since what long times—he cannot say.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><b><a name="THE_WIND" id="THE_WIND"></a>THE WIND</b></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Crossing the infinite length of the moorland,<br /> +Here comes the wind,<br /> +The wind with his trumpet that Heralds November;<br /> +Endless and infinite, crossing the downs,<br /> +Here comes the wind<br /> +That teareth himself and doth fiercely dismember;<br /> +Which heavy breaths turbulent smiting the towns,<br /> +The savage wind comes, the fierce wind of November!<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Each bucket of iron at the wells of the farmyards,<br /> +Each bucket and pulley, it creaks and it wails;<br /> +By cisterns of farmyards, the pulleys and pails<br /> +They creak and they cry,<br /> +The whole of sad death in their melancholy.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The wind, it sends scudding dead leaves from the birches<br /> +Along o'er the water, the wind of November,<br /> +The savage, fierce wind;<br /> +The boughs of the trees for the birds' nests it searches,<br /> +To bite them and grind.<br /> +The wind, as though rasping down iron, grates past,<br /> +And, furious and fast, from afar combs the cold<br /> +And white avalanches of winter the old.<br /> +The savage wind combs them so furious and fast.<br /> +The wind of November.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +From each miserable shed<br /> +The patched garret-windows wave wild overhead<br /> +Their foolish, poor tatters of paper and glass.<br /> +As the savage, fierce wind of November doth pass!<br /> +And there on its hill<br /> +Of dingy and dun-coloured turf, the black mill,<br /> +Swift up from below, through the empty air slashing,<br /> +Swift down from above, like a lightning-stroke flashing,<br /> +The black mill so sinister moweth the wind.<br /> +The savage, fierce wind of November!<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The old, ragged thatches that squat round their steeple,<br /> +Are raised on their roof-poles, and fall with a clap,<br /> +In the wind the old thatches and pent-houses flap,<br /> +In the wind of November, so savage and hard.<br /> +The crosses—and they are the arms of dead people—<br /> +The crosses that stand in the narrow churchyard<br /> +Fall prone on the sod<br /> +Like some great flight of black, in the acre of God.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The wind of November!<br /> +Have you met him, the savage wind, do you remember?<br /> +Did he pass you so fleet,<br /> +—Where, yon at the cross, the three hundred roads meet—<br /> +With distressfulness panting, and wailing with cold?<br /> +Yea, he who breeds fears and puts all things to flight,<br /> +Did you see him, that night<br /> +When the moon he o'erthrew—when the villages, old<br /> +In their rot and decay, past endurance and spent,<br /> +Cried, wailing like beasts, 'neath the hurricane bent?<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Here comes the wind howling, that heralds dark weather,<br /> +The wind blowing infinite over the heather.<br /> +The wind with his trumpet that heralds November!<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><b><a name="THE_FISHERMEN" id="THE_FISHERMEN"></a>THE FISHERMEN</b></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The spot is flaked with mist, that fills,<br /> +Thickening into rolls more dank,<br /> +The thresholds and the window-sills,<br /> +And smokes on every bank.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The river stagnates, pestilent<br /> +With carrion by the current sent<br /> +This way and that—and yonder lies<br /> +The moon, just like a woman dead,<br /> +That they have smothered overhead,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">Deep in the skies.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +In a few boats alone there gleam<br /> +Lamps that light up and magnify<br /> +The backs, bent over stubbornly,<br /> +Of the old fishers of the stream,<br /> +Who since last evening, steadily,<br /> +—For God knows what night-fishery—<br /> +Have let their black nets downward slow<br /> +Into the silent water go.<br /> +The noisome water there below.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Down in the river's deeps, ill-fate<br /> +And black mischances breed and hatch.<br /> +Unseen of them, and lie in wait<br /> +As for their prey. And these they catch<br /> +With weary toil—believing still<br /> +That simple, honest work is best—<br /> +At night, beneath the shifting mist<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">Unkind and chill.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +So hard and harsh, yon clock-towers tell.<br /> +With muffled hammers, like a knell,<br /> +The midnight hour.<br /> +From tower to tower<br /> +So hard and harsh the midnights chime.<br /> +The midnights harsh of autumn time,<br /> +The weary midnights' bell.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The crew<br /> +Of fishers black have on their back<br /> +Nought save a nameless rag or two;<br /> +And their old hats distil withal,<br /> +And drop by drop let crumbling fall<br /> +Into their necks, the mist-flakes all.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The hamlets and their wretched huts<br /> +Are numb and drowsy, and all round<br /> +The willows too, and walnut trees,<br /> +'Gainst which the Easterly fierce breeze<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">Has waged its feud.</span><br /> +No bayings from the forest sound,<br /> +No cry the empty midnight cuts—<br /> +The midnight space that grows imbrued<br /> +With damp breaths from the ashy ground.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The fishers hail each other not—<br /> +Nor help—in their fraternal lot;<br /> +Doing but that which must be done.<br /> +Each fishes for himself alone.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +And this one gathers in his net,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">Drawing it tighter yet,</span><br /> +His freight of petty misery;<br /> +And that one drags up recklessly<br /> +Diseases from their slimy bed;<br /> +While others still their meshes spread<br /> +Out to the sorrows that drift by<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">Threateningly nigh;</span><br /> +And the last hauls aboard with force<br /> +The wreckage dark of his remorse.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The river, round its corners bending,<br /> +And with the dyke-heads intertwined.<br /> +Goes hence—since what times out of mind?—<br /> +Toward the far horizon wending<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">Of weariness unending.</span><br /> +Upon the banks, the skins of wet<br /> +Black ooze-heaps nightly poison sweat.<br /> +And the mists are their fleeces light<br /> +That curl up to the houses' height.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +In their dark boats, where nothing stirs,<br /> +Not even the red-flamed torch that blurs<br /> +With halos huge, as if of blood.<br /> +The thick felt of the mist's white hood,<br /> +Death with his silence seals the sere<br /> +Old fishermen of madness here.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The isolated, they abide<br /> +Deep in the mist—still side by side.<br /> +But seeing one another never;<br /> +Weary are both their arms—and yet<br /> +Their work their ruin doth beget.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Each for himself works desperately,<br /> +He knows not why—no dreams has he;<br /> +Long have they worked, for long, long years,<br /> +While every instant brings its fears;<br /> +Nor have they ever<br /> +Quitted the borders of their river,<br /> +Where 'mid the moonlit mists they strain<br /> +To fish misfortune up amain.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +If but in this their night they hailed each other<br /> +And brothers' voices might console a brother!<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +But numb and sullen, on they go,<br /> +With heavy brows and backs bent low,<br /> +While their small lights beside them gleam,<br /> +Flickering feebly on the stream.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Like blocks of shadow they are there.<br /> +Nor ever do their eyes divine<br /> +That far away beyond the mists<br /> +Acrid and spongy—there exists<br /> +A firmament where 'mid the night.<br /> +Attractive as a loadstone, bright<br /> +Prodigious planets shine.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The fishers black of that black plague,<br /> +They are the lost immeasurably,<br /> +Among the knells, the distance vague,<br /> +The yonder of those endless plains<br /> +That stretch more far than eye can see:<br /> +And the damp autumn midnight rains<br /> +Into their souls' monotony.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><b><a name="THE_ROPE-MAKER" id="THE_ROPE-MAKER"></a>THE ROPE-MAKER</b></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +In his village grey<br /> +At foot of the dykes, that encompass him<br /> +With weary weaving of curves and lines<br /> +Toward the sea outstretching dim,<br /> +The rope-maker, visionary white.<br /> +Stepping backwards along the way,<br /> +Prudently 'twixt his hands combines<br /> +The distant threads, in their twisting play.<br /> +That come to him from the infinite.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +When day is gone.<br /> +Through ardent, weary evenings, yon<br /> +The whirr of a wheel can yet be heard;<br /> +Something by unseen hands is stirred.<br /> +And parallel o'er the rakes, that trace<br /> +An even space<br /> +From point to point along all the way,<br /> +The flaxen hemp still plaits its chain<br /> +Ceaseless, for days and weeks amain.<br /> +With his poor, tired fingers, nimble still.<br /> +Fearing to break for want of skill<br /> +The fragments of gold that the gliding light<br /> +Threads through his toil so scantily—<br /> +Passing the walls and the houses by<br /> +The rope-maker, visionary white,<br /> +From depths of the evening's whirlpool dim,<br /> +Draws the horizons in to him.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Horizons that stretch back afar.<br /> +Where strife, regrets, hates, furies are:<br /> +Tears of the silence, and the tears<br /> +That find a voice: serenest years,<br /> +Or years convulsed with pang and throe:<br /> +Horizons of the long ago,<br /> +These gestures of the Past they shew.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Of old—as one in sleep, life, errant, strayed<br /> +Its wondrous morns and fabled evenings through;<br /> +When God's right hand toward far Canaan's blue<br /> +Traced golden paths, deep in the twilight shade.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Of old, 'twas life exasperate, huge and tense,<br /> +Swung savage at some stallion's mane—life, fleet.<br /> +With mighty lightnings flashing 'neath her feet,<br /> +Upreared immensely over space immense.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Of old, 'twas life evoking ardent will;<br /> +And hell's red cross and Heaven's cross of white<br /> +Each marched, with gleam of steely armours' light.<br /> +Through streams of blood, to heavens of victory still.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Of old—life, livid, foaming, came and went<br /> +'Mid strokes of tocsin and assassin's knife;<br /> +Proscribers, murderers, each with each at strife,<br /> +While, mad and splendid. Death above them bent.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +'Twixt fields of flax and of osiers red.<br /> +On the road where nothing doth move or tread,<br /> +By houses and walls to left and right<br /> +The rope-maker, visionary white,<br /> +From depths of evening's treasury dim<br /> +Draws the horizons in to him.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Horizons that stretch yonder far.<br /> +Where work, strifes, ardours, science are;<br /> +Horizons that change—they pass and glide,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 7.5em;">And on their way</span><br /> +They shew in mirrors of eventide<br /> +The mourning image of dark To-day.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Here—writhing fires that never rest nor end.<br /> +Where, in one giant effort all employed,<br /> +Sages cast down the Gods, to change the void<br /> +Whither the flights of human science tend.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Here—'tis a room where thought, assertive, saith<br /> +That there are weights exact to gauge her by,<br /> +That inane ether, only, rounds the sky.<br /> +And that in phials of glass men breed up death.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Here—'tis a workship, where, all fiery bright,<br /> +Matter intense vibrates with fierce turmoil<br /> +In vaults where wonders new, 'mid stress and toil,<br /> +Are forged, that can absorb space, time and night.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +—A palace—of an architecture grown<br /> +Effete, and weary 'neath its hundred years.<br /> +Whence voices vast invoke, instinct with fears,<br /> +The thunder in its flights toward the Unknown.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +On the silent, even road—his eyes<br /> +Still fixed towards the waning light<br /> +That skirts the houses and walls as it dies—<br /> +The rope-maker, visionary white,<br /> +From depths of the evening's halo dim<br /> +Draws the horizons in to him.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Horizons that are there afar<br /> +Where light, hope, wakenings, strivings are;<br /> +Horizons that he sees defined<br /> +As hope for some future, far and kind.<br /> +Beyond those distant shores and faint<br /> +That evening on the clouds doth paint.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Yon—'mid that distance calm and musical<br /> +Twin stairs of gold suspend their steps of blue,<br /> +The sage doth climb them, and the seer too,<br /> +Starting from sides opposed toward one goal.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Yon—contradiction's lightning-shocks lose power.<br /> +Doubt's sullen hand unclenches to the light,<br /> +The eye sees in their essence laws unite<br /> +Rays scattered once 'mid doctrines of an hour.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Yon—keenest spirits pierce beyond the land<br /> +Of seeming and of death. The heart hath ease,<br /> +And one would say that Mildness held the keys<br /> +Of the colossal silence in her hand.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Up yon—the God each soul is, once again<br /> +Creates, expands, gives, finds himself in all;<br /> +And rises higher, the lowlier he doth fall<br /> +Before meek tenderness and sacred pain.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +And there is ardent, living peace—its urns<br /> +Of even bliss ranged 'mid these twilights, where<br /> +—Embers of hope upon the ashen air—<br /> +Each great nocturnal planet steadfast burns.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +In his village at foot of the dykes, that bend,<br /> +Sinuous, weary, about him and wend<br /> +Toward that distance of eddying light,<br /> +The rope-maker, visionary white.<br /> +Along by each house and each garden wall.<br /> +Absorbs in himself the horizons all.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class="caption">From "LES HEURES CLAIRES"</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><b><a name="I" id="I"></a>I</b></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Oh, splendour of our joy and our delight,<br /> +Woven of gold amid the silken air!<br /> +See the dear house among its gables light,<br /> +And the green garden, and the orchard there!<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Here is the bench with apple-trees o'er head<br /> +Whence the light spring is shed.<br /> +With touch of petals falling slow and soft;<br /> +Here branches luminous take flight aloft,<br /> +Hovering, like some bounteous presage, high<br /> +Against this landscape's clear and tender sky.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Here lie, like kisses from the lips dropt down<br /> +Of yon frail azur upon earth below,<br /> +Two simple, pure, blue pools, and like a crown<br /> +About their edge, chance flowers artless grow.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +O splendour of our joy and of our ourselves!<br /> +Whose life doth feed, within this garden bright,<br /> +Upon the emblems of our own delight.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +What are those forms that yonder slowly pass?<br /> +Our two glad souls are they,<br /> +That pastime take, and stray<br /> +Along the terraces and woodland grass?<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Are these thy breasts, are these thine eyes, these two<br /> +Golden-bright flowers of harmonious hue?<br /> +These grasses, hanging like some plumage rare.<br /> +Bathed in the stream they ruffle by their touch.<br /> +Are they the strands of thy smooth, glossy hair?<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +No shelter e'er could match yon orchard white.<br /> +Or yonder house amid its gables light,<br /> +And garden, that so blest a sky controls,<br /> +Weaving the climate dear to both our souls.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><b><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII</b></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +As in the guileless, golden age, my heart<br /> +I gave thee, even like an ample flower<br /> +That opens in the dew's bright morning hour;<br /> +My lips have rested where the frail leaves part.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +I plucked the flower—it came<br /> +From meadows whereon grow the flowers of flame:<br /> +Speak to it not—'tis best that we control<br /> +Words, since they needs are trivial 'twixt us two;<br /> +All words are hazardous, for it is through<br /> +The eyes that soul doth hearken unto soul.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +That flower that is my heart, and where secure<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">My heart's avowal hides.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Simply confides</span><br /> +Unto thy lips that she is clear and pure.<br /> +Loyal and good—and that one's trust toward<br /> +A virgin love is like a child's in God.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Let wit and wisdom flower upon the height,<br /> +Along capricious paths of vanity;<br /> +And give we welcome to sincerity,<br /> +That holds between her fingers crystal-bright<br /> +Our two clear hearts: for what so beautiful<br /> +As a confession made from soul to soul.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">When eve returns</span><br /> +And the white flame of countless diamonds burns.<br /> +Like myriads of silent eyes intent,<br /> +Th' unfathomed silence of the firmament.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><b><a name="XVII" id="XVII"></a>XVII</b></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +That we may love each other through our eyes<br /> +Let us our glances lave, and make them clear,<br /> +Of all the thousand glances that they here<br /> +Have met, in this base world of servile lies.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The dawn is dressed in blossom and in dew,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">And chequered too</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">With very tender light—it looks as though</span><br /> +Frail plumes of sun and silver, through the mist,<br /> +Glided across the garden to and fro,<br /> +And with a soft caress the mosses kissed.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Our wondrous ponds of blue<br /> +Tremble and wake with golden shimmerings;<br /> +Swift emerald flights beneath the trees dart through.<br /> +And now the light from hedge and path anew<br /> +Sweeps the damp dust, where yet the twilight clings.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><b><a name="XXI" id="XXI"></a>XXI</b></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +In hours like these, when through our dream of bliss<br /> +So far from all things not ourselves we move,<br /> +What lustral blood, what baptism is this<br /> +That bathes our hearts, straining toward perfect love?<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Our hands are clasped, and yet there is no prayer,<br /> +Our arms outstretched, and yet no cry is there;<br /> +Adoring something, what, we cannot say.<br /> +More pure than we are and more far away,<br /> +With spirit fervent and most guileless grown,<br /> +How we are mingled and dissolved in one;<br /> +Ah, how we live each other, in the unknown!<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Oh, how absorbed and wholly lost before<br /> +The presence of those hours supreme one lies!<br /> +And how the soul would fain find other skies<br /> +To seek therein new gods it might adore;<br /> +Oh, marvellous and agonizing joy,<br /> +Audacious hope whereon the spirit hangs,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Of being one day</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Once more the prey,</span><br /> +Beyond even death, of these deep, silent pangs.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class="caption">From "LES APPARUS DANS MES CHEMINS"</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><b><a name="ST_GEORGE" id="ST_GEORGE"></a>ST. GEORGE</b></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Opening the mists on a sudden through,<br /> +An Avenue!<br /> +Then, all one ferment of varied gold,<br /> +With foam of plumes where the chamfrom bends<br /> +Round his horse's head, that no bit doth hold,<br /> +St. George descends!<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The diamond-rayed caparison,<br /> +Makes of his flight one declining path<br /> +From Heaven's pity down upon<br /> +Our waiting earth.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Hero and Lord<br /> +Of the joyous, helpful virtues all.<br /> +Sonorous, pure and crystalline!<br /> +Let his radiance fall<br /> +On my heart nocturnal and make it shine<br /> +In the wheeling aureole of his sword!<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Let the wind's soft silvern whispers sound<br /> +And ring his coat of mail around,<br /> +His battle-spurs amid the fight!<br /> +—He—the St. George—who shines so bright<br /> +And comes, 'mid the wailings of my desire.<br /> +To seize and lift my poor hands higher<br /> +Toward his dauntless valour's fire!<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Like a cry great with faith, to God<br /> +His lance St. George upraised doth hold;<br /> +Crossing athwart my glance he trod.<br /> +As 'twere one tumult of haggard gold.<br /> +The chrism's glow on his forehead shone,<br /> +The great St. George of duty high!<br /> +Beautiful by his heart, and by<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Himself alone!</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Ring, all my voices of hope, ring on!<br /> +Ring forth in me<br /> +Beneath fresh boughs of greenery,<br /> +Down radiant pathways, full of sun;<br /> +Ye glints of silvery mica, be<br /> +Bright joy amid my stones—and ye<br /> +White pebbles that the waters strew.<br /> +Open your eyes in my brooklets, through<br /> +The watery lids that cover you;<br /> +Landscape of gushing springs and sun,<br /> +With gold that quivers on misty blue,<br /> +Landscape that dwells in me, hold thou<br /> +The mirror now<br /> +To the fiery flights, that flaming roll,<br /> +Of the great St. George toward my soul!<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +'Gainst the black Dragon's teeth and claws,<br /> +Against the armour of leprous sores,<br /> +The miracle and sword is he;<br /> +On his breast-plate burneth Charity,<br /> +And his gentleness sends hurtling back.<br /> +In dire defeat, the Instinct black.<br /> +Fires flecked with gold, that flashing turn,<br /> +Whirlwinds of stars, those glories meet,<br /> +About his galloping horse's feet.<br /> +Deep into my remembrance burn<br /> +Their lightnings fleet!<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +He comes, a fair ambassador,<br /> +From white lands built with marble o'er.<br /> +Where grows, in glades beside the sea,<br /> +Upon the tree<br /> +Of goodness, fragrant gentleness.<br /> +That haven, too, he knows no less<br /> +Where wondrous ships rock, calm and still.<br /> +That freights of sleeping angels fill;<br /> +And those vast evenings, when below<br /> +Upon the water, 'mid the skies'<br /> +Reflected eyes.<br /> +Islands flash sudden forth and glow.<br /> +That kingdom fair<br /> +Whereof the Virgin ariseth Queen,<br /> +Its lowly, ardent joy is he;<br /> +And his flaming sword in the ambient air<br /> +Vibrates like an ostensory—<br /> +The suddenly flashing St. George! behold,<br /> +He strikes through my soul like a fire of gold!<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +He knows from what far wanderings<br /> +I come: what mists obscure my brain;<br /> +What dagger marks have deeply scarred<br /> +My thought, and with black crosses marred:<br /> +With what spent force, what anger vain.<br /> +What petty scorn of better things,<br /> +—Yea, and with what a mask I came,<br /> +Folly upon the lees of shame!<br /> +A coward was I; the world I fled<br /> +To hide my head<br /> +Within a huge and futile Me;<br /> +I builded, beneath domes of Night,<br /> +The blocks of marble, gold be-starred,<br /> +Of a hostile science, endlessly<br /> +Towards a height<br /> +By oracles of blackness barred.<br /> +For Death alone is Queen of night.<br /> +And human effort is brightest born<br /> +Only at dawn.<br /> +With opening flowers would prayer fain bloom,<br /> +And their sweet lips hold the same perfume.<br /> +The sunbeams shimmering white that fall<br /> +On pearly water, are for all<br /> +Like a caress<br /> +Upon our life: the dawn unfolds<br /> +A counsel fair of trustfulness;<br /> +And whoso hearkens thereto is saved<br /> +From his slough, where never a sin was laved.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +St. George in radiant armour came<br /> +Speeding along in leaps of flame<br /> +'Mid the sweet morning, through my soul.<br /> +Young, beautiful by faith was he;<br /> +He leaned the lower down toward me<br /> +Even as I the lowlier knelt;<br /> +Like some pure, golden cordial<br /> +In secret felt.<br /> +He filled me with his soaring strength,<br /> +And with sweet fear most tenderly.<br /> +Before that vision's dignity,<br /> +Into his pale, proud hand at length<br /> +I cast the blood my pain had spent.<br /> +Then, laying upon me as he went<br /> +A charge of valour, and the sign<br /> +Of the cross on my brow from his lance divine,<br /> +He sped upon his shining road<br /> +Straight, with my heart, towards his God.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><b><a name="THE_GARDENS" id="THE_GARDENS"></a>THE GARDENS</b></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The landscape now reveals a change;<br /> +A stair—that twinèd elm-boughs hold<br /> +Enclosed 'mid hedges mystic, strange—<br /> +Inaugurates a green and gold<br /> +Vision of gardens, range on range.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Each step's a hope, that doth ascend<br /> +Stairwise to expectation's height;<br /> +A weary way it is to wend<br /> +While noonday suns are burning bright.<br /> +But rest waits at the evening's end.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Streams, that wash white from sin, flow deep,<br /> +And round about the fresh lawns twine;<br /> +While there, beneath the green banks steep,<br /> +Beside his cross, the Lamb Divine<br /> +Lies tranquilly in peaceful sleep.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The daisied grass is glad, and gay<br /> +With crystal butterflies the hedge.<br /> +Where globes of fruit shine blue; here stray<br /> +Peacocks beside the box-trees' edge:<br /> +A shining lion bars the way.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Flowers, upright as the ecstasies<br /> +And ardours of white spirits pure,<br /> +With branches springing fountain-wise,<br /> +Burst upward, and by impulse sure<br /> +To their own soaring splendour rise.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Gently and very slowly swayed.<br /> +The wind a wordless rhapsody<br /> +Sings—and the shimm'ring air doth braid<br /> +An aureole of filigree<br /> +Round every disk with emerald laid.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Even the shade is but a flight<br /> +Toward flickering radiances, that slip<br /> +From space to space; and now the light<br /> +Sleeps, with calmed rays, upon the lip<br /> +Of lilac-blossoms golden-white.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><b><a name="SHE_OF_THE_GARDEN" id="SHE_OF_THE_GARDEN"></a>SHE OF THE GARDEN</b></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +In such a spot, with radiant flowers for halo,<br /> +I saw the Guardian Angel sit her down;<br /> +Vine-branches fashioned a green shrine above her<br /> +And sun-flowers rose behind her like a crown.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Her fingers, their white slenderness encircled<br /> +With humble, fragile rings of coral round.<br /> +Held, ranged in couples, sprays of faithful roses.<br /> +Sealed with a clasp, with threads of woollen bound.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +A shimmering air the golden calm was weaving,<br /> +All filigree'd with dawn, that like a braid<br /> +Surmounted her pure brow, which still was hidden<br /> +Half in the shade.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Woven of linen were her veil and sandals.<br /> +But, twined 'mid boughs of foliage, on their hem<br /> +The theologic Virtues Three were painted;<br /> +Hearts set about with gold encompassed them.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Her silken hair, slow rippling, from her shoulder<br /> +Down to the mosses of the sward did reach;<br /> +The childhood of her eyes disclosed a silence<br /> +More sweet than speech.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +My arms outstretched, and all my soul upstraining.<br /> +Then did I rise,<br /> +With haggard yearning, toward the soul suspended<br /> +There in her eyes.<br /> +Those eyes, they shone so vivid with remembrance,<br /> +That they confessed days lived alike with me:<br /> +Oh, in the grave inviolate can it change, then,<br /> +The Long Ago, and live in the To Be?<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Sure, she was one who, being dead, yet brought me.<br /> +Miraculous, a strength that comforteth,<br /> +And the Viaticum of her survival<br /> +Guiding me from the further side of Death.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class="caption">From "LA MULTIPLE SPLENDEUR"</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><b><a name="THE_GLORY_OF_THE_HEAVENS" id="THE_GLORY_OF_THE_HEAVENS"></a>THE GLORY OF THE HEAVENS</b></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Shining in dim transparence, the whole of infinity lies<br /> +Behind the veil that the finger of radiant winter weaves<br /> +And down on us falls the foliage of stars in glittering sheaves;<br /> +From out the depths of the forest, the forest obscure of the skies,<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The wingèd sea with her shadowy floods as of dappled silk<br /> +Speeds, 'neath the golden fires, her pale immensity o'er;<br /> +And diamond-rayed, the moonlight, shining along the shore,<br /> +Bathes the brow of the headlands in radiance as soft as milk.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Yonder there flow, untwining and twining their loops anew!<br /> +The mighty, silvery rivers, through the translucent night;<br /> +And a glint as of wondrous acids sparkles with magic light<br /> +the cup that the lake outstretches towards the mountains blue.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Everywhere light seems breaking forth into flower and star,<br /> +Whether on shore in stillness, or wavering on the deep.<br /> +The islands are nests where silence inviolate doth deep;<br /> +An ardent nimbus hovers o'er yon horizons far.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +See, from Nadir to Zenith one aureole doth reach!<br /> +Of yore, the souls exalted by faith's high mysteries<br /> +Saw, in the domination of those star-clouded skies,<br /> +Jehovah's hand resplendent and heard His silent speech.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +But now the eyes that scan them no longer may there aspire<br /> +To we some god self-banished—not so, but the intricate<br /> +Tangle of marvellous problems, the messengers that wait<br /> +On Measureless Force, and veil her, there on her couch of fire.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +O cauldrons of life, where matter, adown the eternal day,<br /> +Pours herself fruitful, seething through paths of scattering flame!<br /> +O flux of worlds and reflux to other worlds the same!<br /> +Unending oscillation betwixt newer and for aye!<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Tumults consumed in whirlpools of speed and sound and light—<br /> +Violence we nought may reck of!—and yet there falls from thence<br /> +The vast, unbroken silence, mysterious and intense<br /> +That makes the peace, the calmness and beauty of the night!<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +O spheres of flame and golden, always more far and high;<br /> +Abyss to abyss still floating, onward from shade to shade!<br /> +So far, so high, all reck'ning the wisdom of man has made,<br /> +Before those giddy numbers must shrink in his hands and die!<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Shining in dim transparence, the whole of infinity lies<br /> +Behind the veils that the finger of radiant winter weaves;<br /> +And down on us falls the foliage of star in glittering sheaves,<br /> +From out the depths of the forest, the forest obscure of the skies.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><b><a name="LIFE" id="LIFE"></a>LIFE</b></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +To see beauty in all, is to lift our own Soul<br /> +Up to loftier heights than do chose who aspire<br /> +Through culpable suffering, vanquished desire.<br /> +Harsh Reality, dread and ineffable Whole,<br /> +Distils her red draught, enough tonic and stern<br /> +To intoxicate heads and to make the heart burn.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +O clean and pure grain, whence are purged all the tares!<br /> +Clear torch, chosen out amid many whose flame;<br /> +Though ancient in splendour, is false to its name!<br /> +It is good to keep step, though beset with hard cares,<br /> +With the life that is real, to the far distant goal,<br /> +With no arm save the lucid, white pride of one's soul!<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +To march, thus intrepid in confidence, straight<br /> +On the obstacle, holding the stubborn hope<br /> +Of conquering, thanks to firm blows of the will,<br /> +Of intelligence prompt, or of patience to wait;<br /> +And to feel growing stronger within us the sense,<br /> +Day by day, of a power superb and intense!<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +To love ourselves keenly those others within<br /> +Who share a like strife with us, soar without fear<br /> +Toward that one future, whose footsteps we hear;<br /> +To love them, heart, brain, and because we are kin<br /> +Because in some dark, maddened day they have known<br /> +One anguish, one mourning, one string with our own!<br /> +<br /> +To be drunk with the great human battle of wills—<br /> +—Pale, fleeting reflex of the monstrous assaults,<br /> +Golden movements of planets in heaven's high vaults—<br /> +Till one lives in all that which acts, struggles, and thrills,<br /> +And avidly opens one's heart to the law<br /> +That rules, dread and stern, the whole universe o'er!<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><b><a name="JOY" id="JOY"></a>JOY</b></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +O splendid, spacious day, irradiate<br /> +With flaming dawns, when earth shows yet more fair<br /> +Her ardent beauty, proud, without alloy;<br /> +And wakening life breathes out her perfume rare<br /> +So potently, that, all intoxicate,<br /> +Our ravished being rushes upon joy!<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Be thanked, mine eyes, that now<br /> +Ye still shine clear beneath my furrowed brow<br /> +To see afar, the light vibrating there;<br /> +And you my hands, that in the sun yet thrill,<br /> +And you, my fingers, that glow golden still<br /> +Among the golden fruit upon the wall<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Where hollyhocks stand tall.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Be thanked, my body, that thyself dost bear<br /> +Yet firm and swift, and quivering to the touch<br /> +Of the quick breezes or of winds profound;<br /> +And you, straight frame, and lungs outbreathing wide,<br /> +Along the shore or on the mountain-side,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">The sharp and radiant air</span><br /> +That bathes and grips the mighty worlds around!<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +O festal mornings, calm in loveliness,<br /> +Rose whose pure face the dewdrops all caress,<br /> +Birds flying toward us, like some presage white,<br /> +Gardens of sombre shade or frailest light!<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +What time the ample summer warms the glade,<br /> +I love you, roads, by which came hither late<br /> +She who held hidden in her hands my fate.<br /> +I love you, distant marshes, woods austere,<br /> +And to its depths, I love the earth, where here<br /> +Beneath my feet, my dead to rest are laid.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +So I exist in all that doth surround<br /> +And penetrate me:—all this grassy ground,<br /> +These hidden paths, and many a copse of beech:<br /> +Clear water, that no clouding shadows reach:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">You have become to me</span><br /> +Myself, because you are my memory.<br /> +<br /> +In you my life prolonged for ever seems,<br /> +I shape, I am, all that hath filled my dreams;<br /> +In that horizon vast that dazzles me,<br /> +Trees shimmering with gold, my pride are ye;<br /> +And like the knots upon your trunk, my will<br /> +Strengthens my power to sane, stanch labour still.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Rose of the pearl-hued gardens, when you kiss<br /> +My brow, a touch of living flame it is;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">To me all seems</span><br /> +One thrill of ardour, beauty, wild caress;<br /> +And I, in this world-drunkenness,<br /> +So multiply myself in all that gleams<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">On dazzled eyes,</span><br /> +That my heart, fainting, vents itself in cries.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +O leaps of fervour, strong, profound, and sweet,<br /> +As though some great wing swept thee off thy feet!<br /> +If thou hast felt them upward hearing thee<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Toward infinity,</span><br /> +Complain not, man, even in the evil day;<br /> +Whate'er disaster takes thee for her prey<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Thou to thyself shalt say</span><br /> +That once, for one short instant all supreme<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Which time may not destroy,</span><br /> +Thou yet hast tasted, with quick-beating heart,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Sweet, formidable joy;</span><br /> +And that thy soul, beguiling thee to set<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">As in a dream,</span><br /> +Hath fused thy very being's inmost part<br /> +With the unanimous great founts of power<br /> +And that that day supreme, that single hour,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Hath made a god of thee.</span><br /> +</p> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 33792 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/33792-h/images/verhaeren.jpg b/33792-h/images/verhaeren.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d2581c5 --- /dev/null +++ b/33792-h/images/verhaeren.jpg |
