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diff --git a/35524-8.txt b/35524-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..12075f7 --- /dev/null +++ b/35524-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8591 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Contemporary Belgian Poetry, by Various, +Edited by Jethro Bithell, Translated by Jethro Bithell + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Contemporary Belgian Poetry + Selected and Translated by Jethro Bithell + + +Author: Various + +Editor: Jethro Bithell + +Release Date: March 8, 2011 [eBook #35524] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONTEMPORARY BELGIAN POETRY*** + + +E-text prepared by Christine Bell and Marc D'Hooghe +(http://www.freeliterature.org) from page images generously made available +by Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org) + + + +Note: Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive. See + http://www.archive.org/details/contemporarybelg00bithuoft + + + + + +CONTEMPORARY BELGIAN POETRY + +Selected and Translated by + +JETHRO BITHELL + +M.A., Lecturer in German at the Birkbeck College, London. + + + + + + +1911 + + + To Émile Verhaeren. + + + _Tout bouge--et l'on dirait les horizons en marche._ + + Now let the dead past fall into the deep, + With all its sleepy songs and churching chimes, + You are the Bell that gospels mightier times + O'er men who scale the Future's rugged steep, + + Not looking back to where the weaklings creep, + But, with for battle-song your iron rimes, + Marching front forwards to the visioned climes + Where hearts are steeled and furious forces sweep. + + Of Jewish idols and Greek gods they sang, + But louder than their voice hard anvils rang, + And o'er their gardens smoke trailed waving hair; + + But while the old was ruined by the new, + You pointed to a City far more fair; + And, Master, with glad hearts we follow You. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + Introduction + + SYLVAIN BONMARIAGE-- + + Autumn Evening in the Orchard + You Whom I Love in Silence + + THOMAS BRAUN-- + + The Benediction of the Nuptial Ring + The Benediction of Wine + The Benediction of the Cheeses + + ISI-COLLIN-- + + To the Muse + A Dream + + JEAN DOMINIQUE-- + + Thou Whom the Summer Crosses, as a Fawn + The Legend of Saint Ursula + The Soul's Promise + A Secret + + MAX ELSKAMP-- + + Of Evening + Full of Grace + Full of Grace + Comforter of the Afflicted + Comforter of the Afflicted + Comforter of the Afflicted + Comforter of the Afflicted + To the Eyes + To the Mouth + For the Ear + To-day is the Day of Rest, the Sabbath + Mary, Shed your Hair + And Mary Reads a Gospel-page + And Whether in Gray or in Black Cope + + ANDRÉ FONTAINAS-- + + Her Voice + Cophetua + Desires + Adventure + Luxury + Sea-scape + A Propitious Meeting + The Hours + Awake! + Life is Calm + Frontispiece + Invitation + To the Pole + + PAUL GÉRARDY-- + + She + Evil Love + The Owl + Of Sad Joy + Of Autumn + On the Sea + + IWAN GILKIN-- + + Psychology + The Capital + The Penitent + "Et Eritis Sicut Dii" + Vengeance + The Song of the Forges + Hermaphrodite + The Days of Yore + + VALÈRE GILLE-- + + Art + Thermopylæ + A Naval Battle + + ALBERT GIRAUD-- + + The Tribunes + Cordovans + Florise + Hecate + In the Reign of the Borgias + Absorption + The Youth Among the Lilies + Resignation + Voices + + VICTOR KINON-- + + The Resurrection of Dreams + Midnight + Hiding from the World + The Gust of Wind + The Setting Sun + + CHARLES VAN LERBERGHE-- + + Errant Sympathy + The Garden Inclosed + The Temptation + Art Thou Waking? + All of White and of Gold + The Rain + At Sunset + A Barque of Gold + Lilies that Spin + + GRÉGOIRE LE ROY-- + + The Spinster Past + Roundel of Old Women + Hands + My Eyes + My Hands + Silences + + MAURICE MAETERLINCK + + The Hothouse + Orison + Hot-house of Weariness + Dark Offering + The Heart's Foliage + Soul + Lassitude + Tired Wild Beasts + Lustreless Hours + The Hospital + Winter Desires + Roundelay of Weariness + Burning Glass + Looks of Eyes + The Soul in the Night + Songs + + GEORGES MARLOW-- + + Women in Resignation + Souls of the Evening + + ALBERT MOCKEL-- + + The Girl + The Song of Running Water + The Goblet + The Chandelier + The Angel + The Man with the Lyre + Song of Tears and Laughter + The Eternal Bride + The Bride of Brides + + GEORGES RAMAEKERS-- + + The Thistle + Mushrooms + + GEORGES RENCY-- + + What Use is Speech? + The Source + The Flesh + + FERNAND SÉVERIN-- + + The Chaplet + The Lily of the Valley + Sovran State + The Kiss of Souls + Her Sweet Voice + The Refuge + Nature + The Humble Hope + Eleonora D'Este + The Thinker + A Sage + They Who are Worn with Love + The Centaur + + ÉMILE VERHAEREN-- + + The Old Masters + The Cowherd + The Art of the Flemings + Peasants + Fogs + On the Coast + Homage + Canticles + Dying Men + The Arms of Evening + The Mill + In Pious Mood + The Ferryman + The Rain + The Fishermen + Silence + The Rope-Maker + Saint George + In the North + The Town + The Music-Hall + The Butcher's Stall + A Corner of the Quay + My Heart is as it Climbed a Steep + When I was as a Man that Hopeless Pines + Lest Anything Escape from our Embrace + I Bring to You as Offering To-night + In the Cottage where our Peaceful Love Reposes + This is the Good Hour when the Lamp is Lit + The Sovran Rhythm + + BIBLIOGRAPHY + + NOTES + + + +INTRODUCTION. + + +Otto Hauser refers the Belgian renascence in art and literature to the +influence of the pre-Raphaelites. The influence of painting is at all +events certain.[1] That of music is not less marked.[2] Baudelaire has +been continued by Rodenbach, Giraud, and Gilkin. Verlaine's method in +_Fêtes galantes_ is imitated in Giraud's _Héros et Pierrots_ +(Fischbacher, Paris). The naturalistic style of Zola was independently +initiated in Belgium by Camille Lemonnier, who directly influenced +Verhaeren. But the most potent influence is that of Mallarmé, whose +symbolism has transformed contemporary poetry. It was a feature of the +symbolists to return to the free metres and the simplicity of the +folk-song; and there are echoes of popular poetry in the verse of Braun, +Elskamp, Gérardy, Kinon, van Lerberghe, and Mockel. + +Belgium is a country of mixed nationalities. The two languages spoken +are Flemish and French. Flemish is a Low German dialect, the written +form of which is identical with Dutch. Practically all educated Flemings +speak French, which is the official language; the French Belgians, who +rarely know Flemish,[3] are called Walloons. Only those authors who +write in French are represented in the present volume, and they may be +classed as follows: + +Flemings:--Elskamp (French mother), Fontainas (French admixture), +Giraud, Kinon (Walloon admixture), van Lerberghe, Le Roy, Maeterlinck, +Ramaekers, Verhaeren. + +Walloons:--Bonmariage (English mother), Braun (German grandfather), +Isi-Collin, Jean Dominique, Gérardy (Prussian Walloon), Gilkin (Flemish +mother), Gille, Marlow (English grandfather), Mockel (distant German +extraction), Rency, Séverin. + +The Belgian poets are again divided into two very hostile camps with +regard to metrical questions. The Parnassians (the term is used for want +of a better) cling to the traditional forms of French verse (what Byron +called "monotony in wire"), and to the time-honoured diction; whereas +the _verslibristes_ use the free forms of verse imported into France +from Germany by Jules Laforgue, and perfected by (among others) the +American Vielé-Griffin. It must be noted, however, that there is a +tendency among the _verslibristes_ to return to the classical style: +Verhaeren, who wrote in _vers libres_ after his first two volumes, has, +in his last book, _Les Rythmes souverains,_ approximated to the regular +alexandrine. Van Lerberghe, in a letter written in 1905, condemns the +_vers libre_; but his own work is an immortal monument of its +practicability.[4] The chief Parnassians are Giraud, Gilkin (whose +_Prométhée,_ however, is in _vers libres_), Gille, and Séverin, Max +Elskamp is a _verslibriste_ only in his use of assonance. + +Belgian literature begins, for all practical purposes, with Charles de +Coster's national epic _Uylenspiegel_. De Coster died young, and was +followed by the novelist Camille Lemonnier (1844-). Then comes the +flood-tide, not in literature only, for Fernand Khnopff, Georges Minnes, +Théo van Rysselberghe (the bosom friend of Verhaeren), and Constantin +Meunier are as distinguished in painting and sculpture as, for instance, +Georges Eekhoud and Joris-Karl Huysmans are in the novel. + +The beginnings of the modern movement, which was directed, in the first +instance, against Philistinism, may be traced back to the group of +bellicose students who were gathered together at the University of +Louvain about 1880.[5] Some of them, among whom were Émile Verhaeren and +Ernest van Dyk (the famous Wagner tenor) founded a magazine, _La Semaine +des Etudiants,_ which was soon suppressed by the University authorities. +Other students who later became famous were Iwan Gilkin and Albert +Giraud; and Edmond Deman, who was to become Verhaeren's publisher and a +maker of beautiful books. Another student, Max Waller, who, till his +early death in 1889, was the imp of mischief in the literary world of +Belgium, founded, in rivalry with _La Semaine,_ the magazine _Le Type_, +which was also suppressed. Later on Max Waller founded, in 1882, at +Brussels, together with Georges Eekhoud and Gilkin, _La Jeune Belgique_, +a review to which all the young bloods contributed, making common cause +until they divided into _verslibristes_ and Parnassians, after which the +review was carried on, under the successive editorship of Waller, Gille, +and Gilkin, as the organ of the French party ("l'art pour l'art et le +culte de la forme"[6]). Other reviews which provided a battling-ground +were _L'Art Moderne_[7] to which Verhaeren contributed, and _La +Wallonie,_ which Albert Mockel founded at Liège in 1884. + +The exuberant vitality of these students, though it often led them into +extremes, laid the foundation of a literature which is in many respects +the most remarkable of contemporary Europe. Now that Tolstoy is dead, +Maeterlinck and Verhaeren stand at the head of the literature of the +whole world; and they are, as Johannes Schlaf has maintained, the +perfect types of the "new European." It is absurd to consider them as +Frenchmen; they are as much the product of their country as Ibsen is of +Norway. + +Modern Belgium, "between ardent France and grave Germany," the focus of +all the roads of Europe, is as rich in intellectual gifts as it is +teeming with material wealth. "The vitality of the Belgians," says +Stefan Zweig in his splendid book on Verhaeren, "is magnificent. In no +other part of Europe is life lived with such intensity, such gaiety. In +no other country as in Flanders is excess in sensuality and pleasure a +function of strength. The Flemings must be seen in their sensual life, +in the avidity they bring to it, in the conscious joy they feel in it, +in the endurance they show. It was in orgies that Jordaens found the +models of his pictures: in every kermesse, in every funeral feast you +could find them to this very day. Statistics show us that Belgium stands +at the head of Europe in its consumption of alcohol. Out of every two +houses one is an inn. Every town, every village has its brewery, and the +brewers are the richest traders in the country. Nowhere else are +festivals so animated, so noisy, so unrestrained. Nowhere else is life +so loved, and lived with such superabundance, at such fever-heat." It is +a land that has conquered the sea, and Spain, and is still unspent, +raging with greedy appetites of body and brain. Verhaeren has vaunted it +in himself: + + "Je suis le fils de cette race + Dont les cerveaux plus que les dents + Sont solides et sont ardents + Et sont voraces. + Je suis le fils de cette race + Tenace, + Qui veut, après avoir voulu, + Encore, encore et encore plus."[8] + +The greatest of all French poets, past and present, is Émile Verhaeren. +He was born in 1855 at Saint Amand, a village on the Scheldt to the east +of Antwerp. He has described the impressions of his childhood among the +polders in his charming book _Les Tendresses premières_ (1904), the +processions of ships sailing, like a dream plumed with wind, down the +river under the stars, the dikes, "la verte immensité des plaines et des +plaines"; and in the superb symbolism of _Les Villages illusoires_ he +has magnified the villagers at their trades. He was educated at the +Jesuit school Sainte-Barbe in Ghent, with Georges Rodenbach for a +schoolfellow. Then he studied law at Louvain, made some feint of +practising at Brussels, and, in 1883, burst upon his countrymen with his +audacious book _Les Flamandes_, the fruit of close study of Flemish +_genre_-painting and the poetry of Maupassant. An indignant critic +called him "the Raphael of filth"; but he rehabilitated himself by "_Les +Moines_" (1886), sonorous poems mirroring life in a Flemish monastery, +painting monks whose asceticism is as savage and voluptuous as the huge +joy in life illustrated in _Les Flamandes._ + +These two books glow with health. But the poet had impaired his +constitution by riotous living; and the trilogy which now followed, _Les +Soirs_ (1887), _Les Débâcles_ (1888), and _Les Flambeaux noirs_ (1890), +form one long elegy of disease. These years, his "pathological period," +were full of the blackest pessimism and despair. He was much in London +at this time, in isolation all the more desperate as he could not speak +English. He was fascinated by the atmosphere of the English capital, its +immensity, its desolation, its fogs, identifying his own mind with all +of it: "_O mon âme du soir, ce Londres noir qui traîne en toi!_" "Je +suis l'immensément perdu," he cries out in despair; he yearns for his +brain to give way: "When shall I have the atrocious joy of seeing +madness, nerve by nerve, attack my mind?" But the very keenness of his +self-observation gradually brings him healing: a mastery of the body by +the brain. This intense wrestling with disease is full of significance, +and one of the lessons which Verhaeren has to teach is that new +conditions of existence, the din and dust of great cities, the +never-resting activity of modern brains, will create a new man whose +nervous system will be able to bear the strain imposed upon it. And when +one sees Verhaeren turning from self-torture to lose himself in the +energy of the restlessly progressing world, one thinks of John Addington +Symonds growing stronger over "Leaves of Grass." His recovery and +reconciliation with life are symbolized in his poem _Saint George_, one +of the collection _Les Apparus dans mes Chemins_ (1891). + +In his first two books he had been a realist and a Parnassian. The +volumes which follow are in _vers libres_, and they are, to a certain +extent, symbolistic. _Les Villages illusoires_ (1894) is all symbolism: +the ferryman is the stubborn artist with the green reed of hope between +his teeth; the fishermen symbolize the selfish society of to-day; the +ropemaker weaves the horizons of the future. + +_Les Campagnes hallucinées_ (1893) describes the desolation of the +country, deserted to glut the cities; _Les Villes tentaculaires_ (1895) +is a cinematograph of the town, while the play _Les Aubes_ (1898) +completes the trilogy, and prophesies the dawn of a better day after a +cleansing with blood. In these three books contemporary life is +visualized, reviled, condoned, explained, and reconciled with beauty. +Poets (except Walt Whitman, whom Verhaeren continues) have turned their +eyes away from the present to the past, and sung of rural quiet rather +than of urban roar. When Henley's poem on the motor-car appeared, there +was a cry of derision; but the only thing that was wrong with the poem +was that it was not poetry. Verhaeren, however, has smitten poetry out +of workshops, anvils, locomotives, girders, braziers, pavements, +gin-shops, brothels, the Stock Exchange--out of all that is monstrous +and ugly to those who look at material things, as Ruskin did, with the +eyes of the past. The accepted ideal of beauty is Grecian; but to +Verhaeren the beauty of a thing is not in its outward form, but in the +idea that moves it. In Greece the athlete was beautiful; but strength +to-day is in the nerves; to-day we see more beauty in a face moulded by +mind than in the thews of a discus-thrower. Smoke is beautiful in the +pictures of Whistler and Monet; the toil of grimy workmen is sublime in +the sculpture of Constantin Meunier.[9] For Verhaeren, as Stefan Zweig +says, "a thing is the more beautiful the more finality, will, power, +energy it contains. The whole universe at the present moment is +overheated; it is straining in throes of endeavour; our great towns are +nothing but centres of multiplied energy; their machines are the +expression of forces tamed and organized; their innumerable crowds are +joined together in harmonious action. Thus to Verhaeren all things +appear full of beauty. He loves our epoch because it does not disperse +effort, but condenses it, because it is not scattered, but concentrated +for action. All that has will, and an aim in view, man, machine, crowd, +town, capital; all that vibrates, works, hammers, travels; all that +bears in itself fire, impulse, electricity, and feeling--all this rings +in his verse. Everything lives its minute; in this multiple gear there +is no dust, no useless ornamentation; but everywhere is creation; the +feeling of the future directs all action. The town is a living being." + +Verhaeren knows the great cities of Europe. He has felt the spell of +Hamburg, as well as of Hildesheim and of little towns in Spain. We have +seen him during his period of depression isolated in London, and while +in England he was fascinated by the reek of soot and tar in Liverpool +and Glasgow. In London he would take a ticket to anywhere on "the +underground," and roll along for hours; he wandered about the docks, and +dreamed among the mummies in the British Museum. And though the town of +his poems may be any town, it is no doubt, at the back of his mind, +London. + +In _Les Heures claires_ (1896) and _Les Heures d'après-midi_ (1905), +Verhaeren sings the "douce accalmie" of his wedded life. To translate +some of the poems in these collections would be like forcing one's way +into a sanctuary. As this: + + "Très doucement, plus doucement encore, + Berce ma tête entre tes bras, + Mon front fiévreux et mes yeux las; + Très doucement, plus doucement encore, + Baise mes lèvres, et dis-moi + Ces mots plus doux à chaque aurore, + Quand me les dit ta voix + Et que tu t'es donnée, et que je t'aime encore." + +In another trilogy _Toute la Flandre_ (_Les Tendresses premières_, 1904; +_La Guirlande des Dunes_, 1907; _Les Héros_, 1908) he sings his native +province. Of his plays, _Le Cloître_, in the translation of Osman +Edwards, was staged, with honour and glory to all concerned, by the +Gaiety Theatre in Manchester in 1910. + +The reputation of Verhaeren's schoolfellow, Georges Rodenbach (1855-98), +has waned considerably since his death. He trails such weary +Alexandrines as: + + "Aux heures du soir morne où l'on voudrait mourir, + Où l'on se sent le coeur trop seul, l'âme trop lasse, + Quel rafraîchissement de se voir dans la glace." + +Verhaeren and Rodenbach were followed on the benches of the Collège +Sainte-Barbe at Ghent by Charles van Lerberghe, Maurice Maeterlinck, and +Grégoire Le Roy. Van Lerberghe's first work, _Les Flaireurs_ (1889), is +in a style which is said to have suggested that of Maeterlinck's first +plays. His comedy _Pan_ (1906) is full of devilment. In his lyric verse +there is no sediment; all is clear and rippling like a beck dancing down +a hill-side in the sunshine of summer dawn. If poetry is music, he is a +poet unparalleled. He sings + + "Avec des mots + Si frais, si virginaux, + Avec des mots si purs, + Qu'ils tremblent dans l'azur, + Et semblent dits, + Pour la première fois au paradis." + +What a gem is this poem:-- + + Elle dort dans l'ombre des branches, + Parmi les fleurs du bel été. + Une fleur au soleil se penche.... + N'est ce pas un cygne enchanté? + + Elle dort doucement et songe. + Son sein respire lentement. + Vers son sein nu la fleur allonge + Son long col frêle et vacillant. + + Et sans qu'elle s'en effarouche, + La longue, pâle fleur a mis, + Silencieusement, sa bouche + Autour du bean sein endormi. + +"Ce que nous enseigne Charles van Lerberghe," says Albert Mockel in his +masterly book on his friend, "c'est la puissance de la grâce. Le charme +de ses vers est unique; le sentiment dont ils nous pénètrent a une sorte +de plénitude heureuse qui console le coeur en appelant l'âme vers la +clarté. Une onde invisible nous rafraîchit, nous pacifie ... Mais la +force des plus grands peut seule se fléchir à une pareille douceur, et +il faut la sûreté d'un incomparable artiste pour faire de la parole +écrite cette chose lumineuse et impondérable qui semble autour de nous +comme une poussière d'or suspendue." + +It is scarcely necessary to enter into details here about Maeterlinck; +he needs no introduction to English readers. He has only published one +volume of lyrics, _Serres Chaudes_ (1889), which is now printed with the +fifteen songs he wrote later. In a music laden with sleep rise the +faint, forced lilies of a super-sensitive soul, looking through glass +darkly at a world whose contradictions seem irreconcilable. Verhaeren +has characterized these poems as follows: "C'était d'une inattendue +angoisse, d'une extraordinaire et infinie tristesse, d'une plainte +profonde et simple sortie de l'instinct scellé au fond de nous-mêmes. +Cela ne s'expliquait pas, mais cela perforait le fond de notre âme et +trouvait sa justification dans tout l'inexplicable et dans tout +l'inconnu. L'inconscient ou plutôt la subconscience y reconnaissait son +langage, ou plutôt son balbutiement...." + +Grégoire Le Roy has been an electrician, and is now Librarian of the +_Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts_ at Brussels. He is the poet of +retrospection, as Maeterlinck is the poet of introspection. His heart +"pleure d'autrefois." He is the hermit bowed down by silver hair, +bending at eventide over the embers of the past, visited by weird guests +draped with legend. The weft of his verse is torn by translation, it +cannot be grasped, it is wafted through shadows. + +Max Elskamp is a poet who reminds one that Mariolatry is Minnesong. +There is no reason why the devout should not be edified by his poems, +but his intention is rather to give a subtle idealization of Flemish +life. Those who know Flemish painting will easily read themselves into +the enchanting version of Flanders that he gives us, a Flanders how +different to that of Verhaeren and yet how equally true! + + "Et c'est alors un pays d'ailes + Aux hirondelles, + Flandres des tours + Et de naïf et bon séjour; + Et c'est alors un pays d'ailes + Et tout d'amour." + +Thomas Braun, Victor Kinon, and Georges Ramaekers are fervent Roman +Catholics. Braun's _Livre des Bénédictions_ is a beautifully printed +book illustrated by the quaint woodcuts of his brother, who is a +Benedictine monk. It is a thoroughly Flemish book; but a volume of verse +which he has just published, _J'ai plié le genou_ (published by Deman), +is Walloon in feeling. His other volume, _Philatélie_ (Bibliothèque de +l'Occident, Paris, 1910) is poetry for stamp-collectors! Braun and Kinon +are bucolic poets, somewhat in the manner of the French poet Francis +Jammes, who aims at uncompromising fidelity to nature and the utmost +simplicity of diction. But part of Kinon's work is in the style of Max +Elskamp, fascinating poetry concerning pilgrimages,[10] and the +devotional life of Flanders. Ramaekers, the editor of _Le Catholique,_ +is inspired "par la vision si riante et si forte du Brabant jovial, +intime, et monastique." _Le Chant des Trois Règnes_ is a forest of +mysticism. The "Three Reigns" are those of the Father = the cult of +minerals; the Son = of plants; the Holy Ghost = of Love. Some of the +poems would delight an architect. His knowledge of paintings appears +equally well in his other volume of verse, _Les Saisons mystiques_ +(Librairie moderne, Brussels, 1910). + +André Fontainas is a symbolist of the symbolists. Mallarmé himself could +not have bettered the following exciting sonnet: + + Le givre: vivre libre en l'ire de l'hiver, + Rumeur qui se retrait au regard d'une vitre + Où, peut-être, frémit éphémère l'élytre + De tel vol ou d'un souffle épais de menu-vair. + Le ciel gris s'est, fanfare! à soi-même entr'ouvert: + N'est-ce pas qu'y ruisselle au front morne une mitre? + Non! sénile noblesse où nul n'élude un titre + A se mentir moins vil que ne rampe le ver. + L'heure suit l'heure encore, aucune n'est la seule: + Pareille à soi, voici venir qui l'enlinceule + Pour brusque naître d'elle et pour mourir soudain. + Un chardon bleu, pas même, au suaire, ni cirse + Offrant, rêve chétif et dédain du jardin, + Ne fût-ce qu'une épine à s'en former un thyrse. + +But the great mass of his poetry is perfectly intelligible. He is a +romanticist, but in a new sense; for whereas the old romanticists turned +from the sordid present to the motley middle ages and the choral pomp of +Rome, Fontainas haunts the labyrinths of his soul, and projects his +conscience beyond the bounds of space and time. In Fontainas, as in +Gérardy, knights ride through pathless forests, but these are not the +knights of Spenser. The _Faëry Queen_ is a record of events in the outer +world; Fontainas is a _chevalier errant_ in the inner world of the +spirit, and his castles are only settling-places for the dove of thought +winging out of the unknown. + +Iwan Gilkin and Albert Giraud are Satanists. Gilkin's _La Nuit_, "une +vision terrifiante des turpitudes humaines," is the most interesting +book in Baudelaire's style since Baudelaire. He began it with the +intention of continuing his pilgrimage in two following books through +Purgatory and Paradise; but, as he warns his readers in the preface to +_La Nuit: This is Hell!_ Gilkin seems to have had no aptitude for +Purgatory and Paradise after Hell; at all events, his following works +have nothing to make an Englishman blush. _Le Cérisier Fleuri_ (1899) is +a collection of verse in the classical style; but Gilkin has since +given his best work to the drama: _Prométhée_ (1899), _Etudiants russes_ +(1906), _Savonarole_ (1906). _Jonas_ (1900) is a satire predicting the +conquest of Europe by Asia. + +Albert Giraud is undoubtedly a poet of high rank. His colouring is +marvellous. Above all, he is a very personal poet; one can always hear +the beating of his heart--"À maint endroit le sentiment mal contenu +crève l'enveloppe de sérénité."[11] He is a pessimist and a +Baudelairian: "Il se plaît," says Désiré Horrent, "à remuer le fond +vaseux des âmes, à goûter le charme morbide des voluptés rares et +raffinées." + +Albert Mockel is one of those very rare cases in which a good critic is +at the same time a good poet. As a critic[12] he has probably no rival +except Remy de Gourmont. His hall-mark is subtlety; but his learning, +too, makes one gasp. (He might, no doubt, have been a professor if he +had not been so brilliant). His poetry is philosophy; and the wonderful +thing is that it should be such poetry. It is as light as a breeze, and +like a deep river that shows its pebbles. He has in preparation a book +of verse, _La Flamme Immortelle_, which will be a magnificent +realization of his doctrine of _Aspiration._ Verhaeren interprets the +outer world, Mockel the inner world as reflected in the outer world: for +existence is double, form and shadow. Mockel has written, too, a child's +story-book, _Contes pour les enfants d'hier_[13] which should not be +given to children. + +Paul Gérardy is a well-known German poet as well as a French one. He +belongs to the school of Stefan George. + +In Georges Marlow's poetry the prevailing note is refinement. He has +written little, but what he has written is of the first water. Some of +the verse in his collection _L'Ame en Exil_ is like Brussels lace: + + Aline, au fil de l'eau tremblante + Où les tourelles réflétées + Parlent d'une ville noyée, + Pourquoi baigner tes mains dolentes! + + Princesse trop frêle surgie + D'un recueil de miniatures, + Gracile fée aux lèvres pures + Du vain prestige des magies, + + Ta peine étrange quelle est-elle + Pour qu'en cette onde puérile + Mirant ta candeur infantile + Tu songes aux fleurs immortelles + + Du jardin vague où les éphèbes + Nimbés d'équivoques lueurs, + Sur l'autel d'or de la langueur + Immolent l'ange de leurs rêves? + +Fernand Séverin, who is lecturer in French literature at the University +of Ghent, is a poet of great charm. His diction is apparently that of +Racine, but in substance he is essentially modern. "Virginal" is the +epithet the French critics apply to him, and it describes his chaste, +transparent poetry very well. "Tout y est en nuances, mystérieusement +fuyantes et fondues" (Victor Kinon). He dreams: + + "les mains pleines de roses + Et le coeur enlacé de longs rameaux de lys." + +He is full of languor: + + "Car mes rêves sont las comme de blancs oiseaux + En qui verse l'ennui de l'azur et des eaux + Le suprême désir de dormir sur les grèves." + +Isi-Collin's _La Vallée heureuse_ is full of fine things. In such a poem +as _La Mort d'Ophélie_ the influence of pre-Raphaelite paintings may be +discerned. There is Wordsworthianism in his verse (especially _Le +Pâtre_), as there is in Severin's; not a voluntary absorption into the +outer world, but a passing reflection of it in the inner being; no +direct message, but a statement of a state. + +The only poetess in our collection is Jean Dominique. Besides _L'Anémone +des Mers_ she has published _La Gaule Blanche_ and _L'Aile Mouillée_ +(Mercure de France, 1903 and 1909). Her verse is exquisitely feminine, +shimmering like shot silk, intimately personal, and perfect in form. +"She notes the very shadow that roses cast on her soul." She has written +poems which are worthy of Sappho, as that which begins: + + "Dans la chaleur muette le ciel lisse ses plumes + Comme un grand épervier aux ailes floconneuses; + Mais ce soir, l'oiseau d'or entravé dans les brumes, + Blotti contre la terre humble et délicieuse, + Dormira sur le coeur des femmes amoureuses." + +Georges Rency's Pegasus was a delicate steed with iridescent blue wings +when he took it out into the shadows, and the moonlights, and the dawns, +and recorded its flights on excellent paper. Since then it seems to +have died of inanition, but he himself has produced a robust body of +novels and criticism. + +As to Sylvain Bonmariage, he is a prodigy. He is twenty-four years of +age, and he has written twelve books. Every one of his plays has seen +the footlights. "Précoce à épouvanter le diable et candide à ravir les +saints," is Albert Giraud's description of him. + +Our collection does not exhaust the poetry of Belgium. Perhaps no poem +we have selected has so good a chance of immortality as a snatch of song +by Léon Montenaeken: + + La vie est vaine: + Un peu d'amour, + Un peu de haine.... + Et puis--bonjour! + + La vie est brève: + Un peu d'espoir, + Un peu de rêve ... + Et puis--bonsoir! + + J. BITHELL. + + _April 1911._ + + +[1] Charles van Lerberghe was directly inspired by Rossetti and +Burne-Jones. Verhaeren has written much art criticism. Fontainas, who +has translated Keats, and Milton's _Samson Agonistes_ and _Comus_, is a +historian of painting (_Histoire de la Peinture française au xixème +siècle 1801-1900_, Mercure de France, 1906). Max Elskamp illustrates his +own books with quaint, mediæval woodcuts; see, especially, his _Alphabet +de Notre Dame la Vierge_ (Antwerp, 1901). Mockel has written a study of +Victor Rousseau (1905). Le Roy is an amateur painter. + +[2] Verhaeren heard Wagner's _Walküre_ twenty times running. Mockel is a +learned musician; of his two volumes of verse _Chantefable un peu naïve_ +and _Clartés_ contain musical notations of rhythms. Gilkin found it +difficult to decide whether to be a musician or a poet. + +[3] Verhaeren, who is a Fleming _pur sang_, and who was brought up in an +exclusively Flemish-speaking district, knows practically no Flemish. +Maeterlinck, on the other hand, might have written equally well in +Flemish. + +[4] See Georges Rency, _Physionomies littéraires_, pp. 120-122. + +[5] See Gilkin, _Origines estudiantines de la Jeune Belgique._ + +[6] Gilkin, _Quinze années de littérature_. + +[7] Founded by the lawyer Edmond Picard, who discovered "l'âme belge." +He advocated a literature which should be specifically Belgian. + +[8] "Ma race," Les Forces tumultueuses. + +[9] Stefan Zweig. _Émile Verhaeren_. + +[10] "La Belgique sait mieux que toute autre jouer dans la paille avec +l'enfant de Bethléem." (Thomas Braun.) + +[11] Grégoire Le Roy, _Le Masque_, May 1910. + +[12] _Propos de littérature_,1894; _Émile Verhaeren_, 1895; _Stéphane +Mallarmé. Un Héros_. Mercure de France, 1899; _Charles van Lerberghe_, +Mercure de France, 1901. + +[13] Mercure de France (1908). + + + + +Contemporary Belgian Poetry. + + + + +SYLVAIN BONMARIAGE. + +1887--. + + + /$ + AUTUMN EVENING IN THE ORCHARD. + + + In the monotonous orchard alley glints + The languid sun that yet is loth to leave + This unripe, fascinating autumn eve, + And draws a pastel with faint, feminine tints. + + Spite of the great gold fruits around us strown, + Of the last freshly-opened roses, which + But now we gathered, spite of all the rich + Odour filling the dusk from hay new-mown, + + Of all the ripe, warm, naked fruit thou art + I covet nothing but the savour, while + Thou liest in the grass there with a smile, + Tormenting with thy curious eyes my heart. + + + + YOU WHOM I LOVE IN SILENCE. + + + You whom I love in silence, as I must, + Fain had I been in olden tournament + To shiver lances for your eyes' content, + Making full many a baron bite the dust. + + Or rather I had been that favoured page + Who trained your hounds and falcons that he might + After you down the valley, o'er the height + Go galloping in eager vassalage. + + I might have heard my lord solicit bliss, + And swear to you his vehement promises; + And gone to mass with you at dewy prime; + + And in the cool of evenings I, to woo + The smile of your loved lips, had sung to you + The secret love of lovers of old time. + $/ + + + +THOMAS BRAUN. + +1876--. + + + THE BENEDICTION OF THE NUPTIAL RING. + + "_Ut quæ cum gestaverit fidelitatem integram suo sponso tenens + in mutua caritate vivat._" + + + Almighty God, bless now the ring of gold + Which bride and bridegroom shall together hold! + They whom fresh water gave to You are now + United in You by the marriage vow. + The ring is of a heavy, beaten ore, + And yet it shall not make the finger sore. + But easefully be carried day and night, + Because its secret spirit makes it light. + Its perfect circle sinks into the skin, + Nor hurts it, and the phalanx growing thin + Under its pressure moulds itself ere long, + Yet keeps its agile grace and still is strong. + So love, which in this symbol lies, with no + Beginning more nor ending here below, + Shall, if You bless it, Lord, like gold resist, + And never show decay, nor flaw, nor twist, + And be so light, though solid, that the soul, + A composite yet indivisible whole, + Shall keep its tender impress to the last, + And never know the bonds that bind it fast. + + + + THE BENEDICTION OF WINE. + + "_Ut vinum cor hominis lætifloet._" + + + Lord, You who heard the prayer of Your divine + Mother, and gave Your guests that Cana wine, + Deign now to bless as well the vintage new, + Which cheers the heart of those who pray to you. + The breeze blew warm upon the flowering shoot, + And the sky coloured all the round, green fruit, + Which, guarded from oidium and lice, + Thrushes, phylloxera, and from dormice, + Ripened as You, O Lord, would have it be. + The tendril curled around the sapling tree, + And soon the shoots bent under sun-blue sheaves + With which September loads the crackling leaves. + Over the winepress sides the juice has run, + And, heavily fermenting, cracked the tun. + O Lord, we dedicate to You this wine, + Wherein is pent the spirit of the Rhine; + We vow to You the vintages of France, + Of the Moselle, Black Forest, of Byzance; + Cyprus, Marsala, Malaga, and Tent, + Malmsey, and Shiraz of the Orient; + That of the Gold Isles scented by the sea, + Sherry, Tokay, Thetalassomene; + Nectar of bishops and of kings, champagne; + The blue wine from the hill-sides of Suresnes; + The sour, white wine of Huy; Château Margaux, + Shipped to Your abbots world-wide from Bordeaux; + Oporto's wine that drives the fever out, + And gave to English statesmen rest and gout; + Lacryma Christi, Châteauneuf of Popes, + Grown, O good Lord, upon Avignon's slopes; + Whether in skins or bottles; those you quaff + With ceremonial face or lips that laugh; + Keep them still clear when cobwebs round them grow, + To make all world-sick hearts leap up and glow, + To lighten minds that carking cares oppress, + And yet not dimming them with drunkenness; + Put into them the vigour which sustains + Muscles grown flabby; and along the veins + Let them regenerate impoverished blood; + And bless the privileged pure wine and good, + Whose common, fragile colour, still unspiced, + Suddenly ceasing to be wine, O Christ, + Soon as the blest, transmuting word is said, + Perpetuates Your blood for sinners shed. + + + + THE BENEDICTION OF THE CHEESES. + + "_Dignare sanctificare hanc creaturam casei quam ex adipe + animalium producere dignatus es._" + + + When from the void, good Lord, this earth You raised, + You made vast pasture-lands where cattle grazed, + Where shepherds led their flocks, and shore their fleeces, + And scraped their hides and cut them into pieces, + When they had eaten all their nobler flesh, + Which with earth's virgin odour still was fresh. + O'er Herve's plateaux our cattle pass, and browse + The ripe grass which the mist of summer bows, + And over which the scents of forests stream. + They give us butter, curds, and milk, and cream. + God of the fields, Your cheeses bless to-day, + For which Your thankful people kneel and pray. + Let them be fat or light, with onions blent, + Shallots, brine, pepper, honey; whether scent + Of sheep or fields is in them, in the yard + Let them, good Lord, at dawn be beaten hard; + And let their edges take on silvery shades + Under the most red hands of dairymaids; + And, round and greenish, let them go to town + Weighing the shepherd's folding mantle down; + Whether from Parma or from Jura heights, + Kneaded by august hands of Carmelites, + Stamped with the mitre of a proud abbess, + Flowered with the fragrance of the grass of Bresse, + From Brie, hills of the Vosges, or Holland's plain, + From Roquefort, Gorgonzola, or from Spain! + Bless them, good Lord! Bless Stilton's royal fare, + Red Cheshire, and the tearful, cream Gruyère! + Bless Kantercaas, and bless the Mayence round, + Where aniseed and other grains are found; + Bless Edam, Pottekees, and Gouda then, + And those that we salute with "Sir," like men. + + + +ISI-COLLIN. + +1878--. + + + TO THE MUSE. + + + Skilful the rune of symbols to unravel, + And mute avowals hearkened unawares, + Before the light from lips of flowers fares + With chosen petals I have strown the gravel. + + She I awaited came not to the lawn, + And, solitary, I have chased all night + The lilac's and the lily's breath in flight, + And drunk it deeply in the brimful dawn. + + Upon the sand these flowers that I have strown + My foot has crushed them down with cruel force, + And I am kneeling near the mirroring source, + Where I have sought her mouth and kissed mine own. + + But now I know, and sing with fire renewed + Thy mercy, and thy beauty, and thy youth + Eternal, and I love thee without ruth, + Whom Sappho the divine and Virgil wooed. + + I have all odours to perfume thee here, + And dyes for mouth and eyes, and I will make + Thy looks more luminous, and deep, and clear + Than the stainless azure bathing in this lake. + + Come with thy too red lips and painted eyes! + My senses wait for thee in these bright bowers, + Where they are flowering with the soul of flowers, + O mother of fables and of lyric lies, + + O courtesan! Come where these willows wave, + Lie by the water, I would have thee bare, + With nothing round thine ample shoulders save + All the sun's gold vibrating in thy hair. + + + + A DREAM. + + + Dream of the far hours when + We were exiled beyond the pale + Of our happiness; draw again + Over our love that ancient veil. + + Offer your lips to the evening breeze + That sings among the branches and passes, + Lay back your head on my knees, + Where the river the willow glasses. + Rest in my hands your head + Tired with the weight of the autumn in its tresses red, + And dream! + + (A fabulous sunset bleeds + In the calm water wherein, + Among the reeds, + Our double shadow grows thin, + Bathed in the sunset's red, + And the radiant gold of your head.) + + Dream of your virginal spirit's plight, + When I opened your robe in our wedding night. + + (The noise of a wing that lags + Dies in the waterflags. + And the shadows which descend + With the afterglow, + Mysterious and slow, + Stay on the bank and o'er the waters bend + Their faces of silence.) + + Dream of our love, of our joys, + And in the shadow sing them low; + At the rim of your naked lips + My voice shall ambush your voice. + + (The moonbeams slow and white + Linger on the forest tops, + Fall and glide on the river they light, + And now a veil of radiance drops + On our protecting willow....) + + Dream, this is the hour of snow. + + + +JEAN DOMINIQUE. + +1873--. + + + THOU WHOM THE SUMMER CROSSES, AS A FAWN. + + + Thou whom the summer crosses, as a fawn, + Red in the sun, through forest alleys springs, + My soul with the deep shadows round thee drawn, + Hast thou not seen the sad, blonde swarm of bees + Pass hanging on the eddies of the breeze, + Bearing on millions of exiguous wings + A little motionless and gilded queen?... + + Hast thou not felt the orphan grace that starts + To life with life in any beast, and glows, + Tormented with enchantment, in the hearts + Of delicate fawns and simple eyes of does?... + + My sylvan soul, so full of nests and warm, + Remembering thy flown birds with pangs how keen, + Shalt thou not ever, in parched summer's breath, + Hang like a humming heart and keep the swarm + Of gilded bees bearing their golden queen + Upon thine orphan heart more sad than death?... + + And shalt thou ever of ecstatic nights, + And of the royal Summer crossing earth, + Know but the printed foot in amorous flights + Of the red fawn, and shadow-dappled mirth?... + + Soul whom the Winter too shall cross ere long, + And, after, Passion's Spring as bindweeds strong, + More sad than death shall thou not ever seize + This little orphan, golden queen, in state + Borne round the world upon the eddying breeze + By many a thousand longings that vibrate?... + + + + THE LEGEND OF SAINT URSULA. + + _Painted by Carpaccio._ + + + The slender Ursula has decked her hair, + And her pale visage, and her trailing gown + With odorous collars and with shining pearls; + Her tapering hand the precious burden holds + Of a sheaf of delicately broken folds; + Her fragile temple bears the seal of God. + + There comes to meet her, o'er the port's green wave, + A gallant pagan prince clad with gold hair, + And grace and love, and loveliness suave. + The maiden and the youth have mouths so grave, + That in the sleeping air on the lagoon + Already seem the harps of death to swoon.... + + Ursula, virgin, humble as blonde thatch, + Is earnest, and in costly raiment straight, + And like a kingdom taketh her the prince.... + But she already knows love there is none! + + But she already knows another youth, + The fairest archer of a lordly race, + Awaits her at another ocean's rim + To free her sovran soul to fly to God.... + + And yet she cometh, with her exquisite neck + Beaten by tresses garlanded with pearls, + And the golden youth who loves her with sad cheer + Hearkens approaching nigh his trembling heart, + Following her silent step, a host of wings!... + + + + THE SOUL'S PROMISE. + + + If you can see my soul within my eyes, + I will be softer than a bed of down + For your fatigue to sigh in and to swoon; + I will be kinder to you and more sweet + Than after vain adieux returning soon, + And tenderer than a sky bedimmed with doves! + + Ah! if you feel my heart rise in my eyes, + Like the sick perfume of the autumn rose, + If you will enter on my spirit's waste, + Upon whose stones no foot but yours shall sound, + If you will love my visions and my vows, + I will be more your kin than all your own! + + Upon my soul's wild thyme and moss, and on + Its bare stones where the sun is wont to dance, + And in its wind with fire and solace laden, + In the whole desert of my crimson love, + I will immerse you in my honeycombs. + + Ah! can you gaze into my blinding soul, + And know my heart has leapt into my eyes, + As the sling sends after the singing bird + A stone at the mysterious welkin thrown?... + + If you will scan the desert of mine eyes, + O you will see what suffering immense, + And what vast joy and silence how divine, + When, from my soul's height I shall bear you at, + We shall feel rise in us the wondrous wave + Of scents of roses and the falling night!... + + + + A SECRET. + + + I will put my two hands on my mouth, to hush + The words that, when I see you, to it rush. + + I will put my two hands on mine eyes, lest you + Should in them find what I were fain you knew. + + I will put them on my bosom, to conceal + That which might seem the desperate heart's appeal. + + And I will put them gently into yours, + My two hands sick with grief that long endures.... + + And they shall come full of their tenderness, + Most silently, and even with no caress, + + With the whole burden of a secret broken, + Of which my mouth, eyes, heart had gladly spoken. + + Tired of being empty they to you shall come, + Heavy with sadness, sad with being dumb; + + So desolate, discouraged, pale and frail, + That you may bend, perhaps, and see they ail!... + + + +MAX ELSKAMP. + +1862--. + + + OF EVENING. + + + All at the heart of a far domain, + With those to whom our hearts do strain, + My Truelove weeps for me, distraught + By my death the week has wrought. + My heart's Belovèd grieveth sore, + And plunges her two hands like flowers + Into her eyes whose sorrow showers, + My heart's Belovèd grieveth sore. + + All at the heart of a far domain, + Unto her feet her skates she ties, + Feeling that in her heart is ice, + Far unto me her tired feet strain; + My Truelove hangs to the Chapel pane, + That gazes over all the plain, + With rings, and salt, and dry bread, my + Wretched soul that will not die. + + All at the heart of a far domain, + My Truelove never will weep again + The festivals the seasons bring, + With family rings on fingers twain; + My Love has seen me promising, + Like a saint, to spirits pure + A Sunday that shall aye endure, + And all at the heart of a far domain. + + + + FULL OF GRACE. + + + And Jesus all rosy, + And the earth all blue, + Mary of grace, in your round hands upcurled, + As might two fruits be: Jesus and the world, + And Jesus all rosy, + And the earth all blue. + + And Jesus, and Mary, + And Joseph the spouse, + For all my life I place my trust in you, + As they in Brittany and childhood do, + And Joseph the spouse, + And Jesus and Mary. + + Then Egypt too, + The flight and Herod, + My old soul and my feet that tremble, seeing + Towards the distant places ambling, fleeing, + And the ass and Herod, + And Egypt too. + + Now, Jesus all golden, + Like statues of Christ, + O Mary, in your hands that hold the sword, + Over my town whereon your tears are poured, + Jesus more golden + In your arms and Christ. + + + + FULL OF GRACE. + + + Now more and more, fain were my lips + Your inexhaustible Grace to say, + O Mary, at the sailing-day + Of bowsprits and of all my ships + + Unto the islands of the sea, + Where went my merchandize of old, + By winds on other oceans rolled + From isle to island of the sea. + + But I have donned the broken shoes + Of those who dwell on land, and sprent + My tongue with ash of discontent + Because my memory seems to lose + + The sounding Psalm that sang You Hail, + Who decked my prows in gold attire, + When in Your hands the sheets were fire, + The sun a spreading peacock's tail. + + Now be it so, since in me stays + Salvation that the sails possess + Under the wind the stars caress + Of far beyond and other days, + + And let it be Your self-same Grace + In this to-day of broken shoon, + The same sky, and the same round moon + As when I sailed, O Rich in Grace. + + + + COMFORTER OF THE AFFLICTED. + + + Ineffable souls are known to me, + In houses of poor bodies pent, + And sick to death with discontent, + Ineffable souls are known to me; + + Known to me are poor Christmas eyes, + Shining out their little lights + As prayers go glimmering through the nights + Known to me are poor Christmas eyes + + Weeping with coveting the sky + Into their hands with misery meek; + And feet that stumble as they seek + In pilgrimage the radiant sky. + + And then poor hungers too I know, + Poor hungers of poor teeth upon + Loaves baked an hundred years agone; + And then poor thirsts I also know; + + And women sweet ineffably, + Who in poor, piteous bodies dwell, + And very handsome men as well, + But who are sick as women be. + + + + COMFORTER OF THE AFFLICTED. + + + Now Winter gives me his hand to hold, + I hold his hand, his hand is cold; + + And in my head, afar off, blaze + Old summers in their sick dog-days; + + And in slow whiteness there arise + Pale shimmering tents deep in my eyes + + And Sicilies are in them, rows + Of islands, archipelagos. + + It is a voyage round about, + Too swift to drive my fever out, + + To all the countries where you die, + Sailing the seas as years go by, + + And all the while the tempest beats + Upon the ships of my white sheets, + + That surge with starlight on them shed, + And all their swelling sails outspread. + + I taste upon my lips the salt + Of ocean, like the bitter malt + + Drunk in the land's last orgy, when + From the taverns reel the men; + + And now I see that land I know: + It is a land of endless snow...; + + Make thou the snow less hard to bear, + O Mary of good coverings, there, + + And less like hares my fingers run + O'er my white sheets that fever spun. + + + + COMFORTER OF THE AFFLICTED. + + + I pray too much for ills of mine, + O Mary, others suffer keen, + Witness the little trees of green + Laid where Your altar candles shine; + + For all the joys of kermesse days, + And all the roads that thither wend + Are full of cripples without end, + By night are all the kermesse ways. + + And then the season grows too chill + For these consumptive steeds of wood, + Although the drunken organ should, + Alone, keep its illusions still. + + Poorer than I have more endured; + Despairing of their hands and feet, + Poor folks that cough and nothing eat, + People too agèd to be cured, + + With ulcers wherein winter smarts, + O Virgin, meekly, turn by turn, + They come to You and candles burn, + All in a nook of silvered hearts. + + + + COMFORTER OF THE AFFLICTED. + + + Now is the legend revealed, + And my cities also are healed, + + Consoled till they love each other, + Like a child that has wept, by its mother, + + In the things mysterious all + Of altars processional, + + And now all my country is dight + With dahlias and lilies white, + + Your candles to glorify + Mary, ere May passes by. + + Lo! endless the pleasure is, + May returned, and maladies + + Borne to horizons blue, + On vessels simple and true, + + Far away, on the sea so far + Hardly seen, or like dots they are. + + Now, under trees, the time glides + In the street where my life abides; + + Mary of meek workers, steep + In the May-wood my head in the sleep + + And the rest that my good tools have earned; + Sound mind in a sound body urned, + + In a Mary-month more splendid, + Because all my task is ended. + + + + TO THE EYES. + + + Now, sky of azure + On houses rosy, + Like a child of Flanders preach + The simple religion I teach, + Like a sky of azure + On houses rosy; + + Lo, to the vexed + I bring these roses, + When their memory to the islands reaches, + The voices that my gospel preaches, + Like the gladsome text + A child's talk glozes. + + You people happy + With very little: + You women and men of my city, + And of all my moments of pity, + Be happy + With very little; + + For letters blue + On pages rosy, + This is all the book that I read you, + Unto your pleasaunce to lead you, + In a country blue + Houses rosy. + + + + TO THE MOUTH. + + + For, you my brothers and sisters, + With me in my bark you shall go, + And my cousins, the fishers, shall show + Where the fin of the shoaled fishes glisters, + + Whose tides the bow-nets heap, + Till the baskets cry out, days and days, + Darkening the blue ocean's face, + As in a path crowded sheep. + + You shall see my nets all swell, + And St. Peter helping the fishes + Which for the Fridays he wishes, + Sole, flounder, mackerel. + + And St. John the Evangelist + Lending a hand with the sheets, + At the low ebb of autumn heats, + When haddocks come, says the mist. + + And our women with tucked-up sleeves, + Like banquets on your tables; + And miracles, and fables + To tell in the holy eves. + + + + FOR THE EAR. + + + Then nearer and nearer yet + To the sea in a golden fret, + + On the dikes where the houses end, + The trees to the sea-breeze that bend; + + With their baptismal names anchored here, + In the rivers to which they are dear, + + The vessels my harbour loves best, + Clustered, a choir, at their rest. + + Now in their festivity, + I salute you, _Anna-Marie,_ + + Who seem in your white sails to bear + Cherubs that flit through the air; + + And with joy that I scarcely can speak + I see you again, _Angélique,_ + + You with no shrouds on your mast, + Safe returned from Iceland at last. + + But now, like _Gabrielle_, sing + Your new sails smooth as a wing, + + And weep no more, _Madeleine,_ + For your nets you have lost on the main, + + Since all are pardoned, even + The wind, for kisses given, + + So that in kisses and glee + These visiting billows may be + + Content with the homage they pay, + High the sea, to sing the May. + + + + TO-DAY IS THE DAY OF REST, THE SABBATH. + + + To-day is the day of rest, the Sabbath, + A morning of sunshine, and of bees, + And of birds in the garden trees, + To-day is the day of rest, the Sabbath; + + The children are in their white dresses, + Towns are gleaming through the azure haze, + This is Flanders with poplar-shaded ways, + And the sea the yellow dunes caresses. + + To-day is the day of all the angels: + Michael with his swallows twittering, + Gabriel with his wings all glittering, + To-day is the day of all the angels; + + Then, people here with happy faces, + All the people of my country, who + Departed one by one, two by two, + To look at life in blue distant places; + + To-day is the day of rest, the Sabbath-- + The miller is sleeping in the mill-- + To-day is the day of rest, the Sabbath, + And my song shall now be still. + + + + MARY, SHED YOUR HAIR. + + Mary, shed Your hair, for lo! + Here the azure cherubs blow, + + And Jesus wakes upon Your breast; + Where His rosy fingers rest; + + And golden angels lay their chins + Upon their breathing violins. + + Now morning in the meads is green, + And, Mary, look at Life's demesne: + + How infinitely sweet it seems, + From the forests and the streams + + To roofs that cluster like an isle; + And, Mary, see Your cities smile + + Happy as any child at play, + While from spires and steeples they + + Proclaim the simple Gospel peace + With their showering melodies + + From the gold dawn to the sunset sky, + Greeted, Mary of Houses, by + + The men of Flanders loving still + The brown, centennial earth they till. + + And sing now, all ye merry men + Who plough the glebe, sing once again + + Your Flanders sweet to larks that sing + With gladsome voices concerting, + + And sail afar, ye ships that glass + Your flags in billows green as grass, + + For Jesus holds His hands above, + Mary, this festival of love + + Made by the sky for summer's birth, + With silk and velvet covering earth. + + + + AND MARY READS A GOSPEL-PAGE. + + + And Mary reads a Gospel-page, + With folded hands in the silent hours, + And Mary reads a Gospel-page, + Where the meadow sings with flowers, + + And all the flowers that star the ground + In the far emerald of the grass, + Tell her how sweet a life they pass, + With simple words of dulcet sound. + + And now the angels in the cloud, + And the birds too in chorus sing, + While the beasts graze, with foreheads bowed, + The plants of scented blossoming; + + And Mary reads a Gospel-page, + The pealing hours she overhears, + Forgets the time, and all the years, + For Mary reads a Gospel-page; + + And masons building cities go + Homeward in the evening hours, + And, cocks of gold on belfry towers, + Clouds and breezes pass and blow. + + + + AND WHETHER IN GRAY OR IN BLACK COPE. + + + And whether in gray or in black cope,-- + Spider of the eve, good hope,-- + + Smoke ye roofs, and tables swell + With meats to mouths delectable; + + And while the kitchen smoke upcurls, + Kiss and kiss, you boys and girls! + + Night, the women, where they sit, + Can no longer see to knit; + + Now, like loving fingers linking, + Work is done and sleep is blinking, + + As balm on pious spirits drips, + All tearful eyes, all praying lips, + + And straw to beasts, to mankind beds + Of solace for their weary heads. + + Good-night! and men and women cross + Arms on your souls, or hearts that toss. + + And in your dreams of white or blue, + Servants near the children you; + + And peace now all your life, you trees, + Mills, and roofs, and brooks, and leas, + + And rest you toilers all, between + The woollen soft, the linen clean, + + And Christs forgotten in the cold, + And Magdalenes within the fold, + + And Heaven far as sees the eye, + At the four corners of the sky. + + + +ANDRÉ FONTAINAS. + +1865--. + + + HER VOICE. + + + O voice vibrating like the song of birds, + O frail, sonorous voice wherein upwells + Laughter more bright than ring of wedding bells, + I listen to her voice more than her words. + + Soul of old rebecs, spirit of harpsichords, + Within her voice your soft inflection dwells; + Blisses of love some ancient viol tells, + Kiss snatched by lips that swift lips turn towards. + + Her voice is sweetness of chaste dreams, the scent + Of iris, cinnamon, and incense blent, + A music drunk, a folded mountain's calm; + + It is within me made of living sun, + Of luminous pride and rhythms vermilion; + It is the purest, the most dazzling psalm. + + + + COPHETUA. + + + With right arm on the open casement rim, + The negro King Cophetua, with sad mien, + And eyes that do not see, looks at the green + Autumnal ocean rolling under him. + + His listless dream goes wandering without goal; + He is not one who would be passion's slave; + And no remorse, nor memory from its grave + May haunt the leisure of his empty soul. + + He does not hear the melancholy chaunt + Of girls who beg before him, hollow, gaunt + With fasting, coughing in the mellow sun, + + And unawares, he knows not how it came, + he feels within his hardened heart a flame, + And burns his eyes at the eyes of the youngest one. + + + + DESIRES. + + + What does she dream, lost in her hair's cascade, + The lonely child with flowering hands as wan + As garlands pale?--Of the plains of days agone + With pools of water lilies, where she strayed + + On paths of chance her hands with flowers arrayed, + And where alms welcomed her?--And never shone + As now her eyes her jewels braided on + Her gowns of gold and purple and brocade. + + But she sees nothing round her. In the room + Amber and aromatics melt the gloom, + The dusk's hot odour through the window streams; + + As heavy as an opal's changing fires, + Sigh in the evening mist and die desires, + While naked at her glass the maiden dreams. + + + + ADVENTURE. + + + Under the diadem of rustling pearls + And sapphires in their grasp of gold, + In yellow hair that undulatingly unfurls + Over her shoulders slow and cold, + And purple cloak exulting with brocade, + + The Princess of the Manor's Games and Joys. + + And in the jubilant noise + Rivers of lightning flame unrolled, + And the rich purple torch sheds its delight, + And twists its rustling tresses in the night. + + The Princess of the Manor's Joys + Lifts in a dawn of amethysts + Her tender visage that more sadly aches + Than gloamings on the lunar face of lakes, + With lingering smile upon her lip she lists, + And casts a call into the evening mists. + + In spite of omens tragical, + All they who wait upon her come + To lawns where sistrum, fife, and drum + To revelry and dancing call. + + O King! like mourning is our merry-making! + Out of our arms thou hast thyself exiled, + And by our kisses art no more beguiled! + Our hearts for thee are aching! + Thou hast fled, thou hast fled, + And in the night I raise my head, + And call for thee with sobs, and bosom sore! + But still our festivals shall be forsaken, + The mourning from our hearts shall not be taken, + My fingers nevermore + Shall o'er thy golden velvet tresses glide; + My heavy arms shall nevermore thy neck enlace + In passionate embrace + Rich with the jewels of the bracelets of my pride! + + Farandola and roundelay, + And the mad songs of pride, + In sudden waves over the threshold glide, + And through the chambers sway. + + Thou never shalt return from unknown lands, + O King! The sceptre is fallen from thy hands, + The lassitude that lulled thee in its lap + Has stolen from thy proud, young years their sap, + Now art thou crossing thresholds far forlorn + Of mysteries and adventures luring thee + Where monsters crouch beneath the twisted tree; + Chimeras and the pitiless unicorn + Shall belch their fire where thou thy way wouldst grope + And thou shalt nevermore have my caress + To soothe thee into happy heedlessness + Of life, and perils of inimical hope. + + O come back, ere it be too late! + At evening come unto the Joys that wait, + Come to the dancing and to thy Princess, + Who cradled thee with kisses and with tenderness, + And sweet refrains of songs. + Come to thy crown and sceptre, and the throngs + Of them that love thee, and the memory + Of thine ancestors shall bring back to thee + Forgetfulness of mad adventures in the kiss + Of her who thy Princess and Sister is. + + + + LUXURY. + + + How vain are songs! Can they be worth the hymn + To your ecstatic eyes of mine that swim? + The noblest song of man no bosom stirs, + Weak are sonorous words, but conquerors + Are ye, glances of amber and of fire, + Lips you, and clinging kisses slow to tire + That in my soul are scorching! You that dare + Leap out of longing, kisses! And you hair + Of virgin gold that glints like noonday suns! + And marble whiteness where, like lava, runs + Your wild blood, snow and brazier!-- + Here I lie + Your slave for ever, at your feet I die + In sleepful spasms that the senses cloy, + And the slow languor of the tasted joy; + Mad with your velvety and waxen flesh + That holds my soul and body in its mesh; + I love you, I am poured out at your feet, + Your hands are with lascivious jasmine sweet, + Your beauty blooms for me! In my embrace + I feel your life blowing upon my face, + And entering into me! Your blinding eyes + Thrill me with raptures of that Paradise + Whose rubies bleed, whose yellow topazes + Sleep in the sloth of sensualities, + And where the limitless horizons hide + Our Hell of luxuries grated round with pride. + I love thee, though the kisses of thy teeth, + Cunning to bite in their red vulva sheath, + Have the allure of Lamias that enslave + With luxury swift and cruelty suave. + Through tortures from your native Orient swim + Ineffably pure o'er peaceful lakes the slim + Swans of your voice white in their wildering + And subtle scents of snow, and on their wing + Bear me towards the hope your bright eyes beam. + Now let me lie upon your breasts and dream. + Say nothing! Let us sleep in our blue bower + Under the tufted pleasures of the hour, + By the night's tranquil torpor lulled and kissed ... + Already yon far dawn of amethyst + Dyes the deep heavens, and the moon at rest + Upon her soft cloud cushions hath caressed + With argent light the forest's idle trance, + And starred the stream with eyes that gleam and glance! + + And now the dawn is on our pillow--hide + Your eyes--I shiver--they are haggard, wide! + + + + SEA-SCAPE. + + + Under basaltic porticoes of calm sea-caves, + Heavy with alga and the moss of fucus gold, + In the occult, slow shaking of sea-waves, + Among the alga in proud blooms unfold + The cups of pride of silent, slender gladioles.... + + The mystery wherein dies the rhythm of the waves + In gleams of kisses long and calm unrolls, + And the red coral whereon writhes the alga cold + Stretches out arms that bleed with calm flowers, and beholds + Its gleams reflected in the rest of waves. + + Now here you stand in gardens flowered with alga, cold + In the nocturnal, distant song of waves, + Queen whose calm, pensive looks are glaucous gladioles, + Raising above the waves their light-filled bowls, + Among the alga on the coral where the ocean rolls. + + + + A PROPITIOUS MEETING. + + + Propitious dawn smiles on him wandering + And fretful in the evil forest deeps; + The heavy night's long, bitter rumour sleeps; + The sun's clear song makes the horizon ring. + + The scent of sage and thyme is as a sting + Unto his jaded sense, the wind that sweeps + The blue sea round the promontory steeps + Freshens with hope his fate's proud blossoming. + + The glory of Joy into his soul returns, + And his heroic dream leaps up and burns, + Even as this dawn's far-flung vermilion, + + And lo! at the horizon, very calm, + Pacing their steeds, and holding out their palm, + The Kings he deemed dead marching in the sun. + + + + THE HOURS. + + + The tiring hour that weeps, + And the young hour gay with sun, + Hour after hour creeps, + Hours after hours run + Along the river banks. + + This is an hour of dawn that vapour cloaks. + Yonder a thread, so it would seem, + Stretches a bridge across the stream. + Shadow follows shadow, the mist chokes + The water sleepy as a moat's, + A tug smokes, + And drags its heavy, grating chain, + And drags its train + Of ghostlike boats, + Walls of black + Along a hidden track + Towards the arches blear + Where now they disappear. + + Like sudden palms of gold, + Three sunbeams glide + To where the waters hide, + And all along the river in the cold + Life is again begun, + With all its joys + Of toil and noise + Awakening in the quivering, crimson sun. + + The hour is rising radiant with mirth, + Beaming smiles down on the earth, + O festival of light! + Here is life that smiles upon its toil, + And with high forehead makes the night recoil + Towards the sun in heavens bright + With strength and with delight. + + Life quickens on faces + Mad and fervent zest. + To live! is when the hot blood races + And swells the breast, + And makes the words leap out in ready throng! + Life is to be alone and strong, + And master of one's fate! + Ye floods of purple pour in state, + Ripen the morn, and roll men's blood along! + + The wise + Have never lived and do not know what joys + Are in mad battle, carnage and great noise, + When courage with courage vies. + The wise + Are they who when the cautious eve creeps on to night + Exile themselves from the festival of light + Weeping its tears of proud gold on the river, + O'er the lamp-lit book to shiver. + To live + Is better, and to ring one's heel + On the floor of a palace won by crimsoned steel, + Or underneath a charger's hoofs to tread + The grass of roads down-trodden by the fugitive + Foe who has dyed them red. + + But the young hour gay with sun, + The tiring hour that weeps, + Hour after hour creeps + Hours after hours run + Along the river banks. + + Now cooler are noon's beams, + O dreams reposed with languor and with ease, + The waters creep, + O calm dreams! + Upon the moss in shade of elms and alder-trees + The peaceful fishers sleep; + A long thread swims upon the dying stream. + In the foliage never a shiver, + The sun darts never a beam, + All is dumb. + The earth around, the meadows and the river, + And the air with sunshine numb, + And the forest with its leafy houses, + Everywhere all action drowses, + And the earth hesitates with indecision, + A smoker's vague vision. + + The only wisdom is to live + The hours of the river, sleeping on its slopes. + Why should we madly follow fugitive + Inclement pride and crumbling hopes + Along the precipices of the heavy night, + That swallows up all ruined light? + No! to live + Is to follow all the river's turnings, + Sailing one's life with dreams and yearnings, + With prow set to the Orient of oblivion, + To conquer all the sea and all the isles that smile, + That no discoverer will ever set foot on + Save he who kept desire a virgin, all the while, + O dream! + + The young hour gay with sun, + The tiring hour that weeps, + Hour after hour creeps, + Hours after hours run, + Along the river banks. + + + + AWAKE + + + Awake! + It is a joy among hibernal hours + To plunge into the pane the hoar-frost flowers; + Behold: the petals glittering on the pane + Open their wings that dream would follow fain. + + Awake, and revel in the dawn's pure joys, + And smile upon the time the sun becalms: + In the bright garden, save in dream, no noise + But a long imagined shivering, O palms! + + Come, and behold my love, as ever of old, + Make the vast silence flower lit by thy glance, + Glad with its peaceful pinions to enfold + Our passion soothed with rich remembrance. + + + + LIFE IS CALM. + + + Life is calm, + Even as this evening of sweet summer, now + The bird is silent on the bough, + That bends above the river, + Whose reeds no longer quiver; + And the pacific night and wise + Sleeps without a shudder under cloudless skies. + + Life is calm! + It is your face, O sister dear, + At happiness scarce smiling here, + Life is your face, dear sister, + So calm; + As life is and your happiness, + Your face is cloudless, calm, and passionless. + + Even the river hushes + Between its banks, among its rushes; + One by one fall flowers; + Silent, gentle eventide, + Life is calm where waters glide; + By waters where the happiness that lies + Smiling, sister, in the tender flashing of your eyes, + Is wondering at the waters, and the evenings, and the hours. + + + + FRONTISPIECE. + + + The gems that ivories clip, + And chrysoberyls puerile, + Mingling their gleams, beguile + The dole of the black tulip; + + The fountain weeps in the old + Garden o'er flowers sad, + Which by the dawn are clad + In amethyst and in gold: + + In the boxwood shadow lingers, + In sentimental _fêtes,_ + The _chevalier_, and awaits + The princess whose pale fingers + Are flowers that bring relief + Unto her languorous grief. + + + + INVITATION. + + The ruby my vow desires + For your beauty smiling kind + Is surely incarnadined + By a limpid mirror's fires. + + Ice with the flame interchanges, + And your eyes hard with dignity + Bruise the sobbed longing to be + A bauble your hand arranges. + + But remember the waters yonder + Cradle the vessels that wander + To the isle in the bright future hidden, + + And come while the winter is dark, + To sail our adventurous bark + Madly o'er oceans forbidden. + + + + TO THE POLE. + + + Through fogs impassible that freeze the soul, + And under torpor-laden skies of gray, + If none can ever open out a way + To the icy horror of the reachless Pole, + + Yet those who died or shall die striving thither, + In faith of victory and glory of dream, + Have known the rapturous pride of conquest gleam, + Brief flower of hope that never grief shall wither. + + But thou, long cheated by the immutable thirst + Of being loved, hast too, too well rehearsed + The vanity of combats sterile all, + + And dost with bitter, pitiless irony see + Those who go following ghosts that ever flee + Sink in the chasm where thyself didst fall. + + + +PAUL GÉRARDY. + +1870--. + + + SHE. + + + She whom my heart in dream already loves + Will under childlike curls have great blue eyes; + Her voice will be as sweet as that of doves, + Her skin a faint rose like a dream that dies. + + So slender she will be among earth's daughters, + That you would think of lilies under glass, + Of a fountain weeping to the sky its waters, + Or the moon's beam quivering on dewy grass. + + And, from her deep heart to her lips arising, + Guessing what seeds of songs are in me sown, + She will be ever humming them, disguising + My soul with the golden gamut of her own. + + And never a bitter word will come from her; + Her eyes will always call to my caress, + Chaste as the eyes of my own mother were, + Melting with my own mother's tenderness. + + + + EVIL LOVE. + + + I have yearned for the wicked child + With her sensual mouth's red glow, + And her restless eyes that show + How sateless her soul is and wild. + + The lustful virgin, the child + With her sick flesh fainting above + The sweat of novels of love, + By which her soul is defiled. + + She sins in her sleep; and in + Her evil smile there gleams, + Implacable as her dreams, + The lust of perversion and sin. + + I have dreamt of the virgin impure; + The fire of her hair has profaned + My chastity with its lure-- + And my eyes with tears are stained. + + + + THE OWL. + + + There is a haggard flitting through the night, + And stupid wings are writhing through the wind, + And then, afar, a screeching of dark fright, + Like cries of a frail conscience that has sinned. + + It is the shy owl of long moonless nights, + It is the inconsolable owl who peers + With blear eyes through drear darkness, and who blights + The peace of sleep with stark foreboding fears. + + The inconsolable night-bird weeping through + The gloam, the spectral bird who fears the day, + Whose panic flitting chills the dark, and who + Fills space with cries that quiver with dismay. + + But thou, poor owl, an ivied steeple seëst, + Where thou canst hide from dawning's garish hour-- + My heart, who from the kiss of woman fleëst, + Where shalt thou find the peace of some old tower? + + + + OF SAD JOY. + + + I am angry with you, little girl, + Because of your gracious smiles, + And your restful lips, and teeth of pearl, + And the black glitter of your great eyes. + + I am angry with you, but on my knees, + For when I went away, in happy wise, + Far from you, far as goes the breeze, + I could think of nothing but of your eyes. + + I was timid, I never dared look back, + And I went singing as madmen do, + To forget your eyes, alack! + But my song was all about you. + + + + SOME SONG OR OTHER. + + + The song of moonlight all + That trembles as aspens shake, + The thrush sang it at the evenfall + To the listening swan on the blue lake. + + It is all of love and distress, + And of joy and of love, and then + There are sobs of gold and weariness, + And ever comes joy back again. + + Far, far away flew the thrush, + And the swan went pondering + All the new words, by lily and rush, + With his head underneath his wing. + + + + OF AUTUMN. + + + While the moon through the heavens glides, + With music enchanting our way, + Come in the gladness to stray + Of the gorgeous autumn-tides. + + Now comes the wind, and lifts + The gold of glad forests along; + And many a mystical song + Along the breeze with it drifts. + + This life is most gracious and dear, + Enchanting our way as we go + With the laughter and golden glow + Of autumns singing clear. + + + + ON THE SEA. + + + Blow, blow, thou boisterous tempest, + Blow, bitter winds and stark; + The fisher, he cannot hear you, + A-sailing in his dream-bark. + + He sails to what pale daughters, + To what horizons dim? + Rage, rage ye winds and climb ye waters, + But we are waiting for him. + + We are the lovelorn maidens, + Alone in the wearisome dark; + You winds and you waters that love us, + Overturn him in his dream-bark. + + + +IWAN GILKIN. + +1858--. + + + PSYCHOLOGY. + + + A surgeon, I the souls of men dissect, + Bending my feverish brow above their shameless + Perversions, sins, and vices, all their nameless + Primitive lusts and appetites unchecked. + + Upon my marble men and women spread + Their open bellies, where I find the hidden + Ulcers of passions filthy and forbidden, + And probe the secret wounds of dramas dread. + + Then, while my arms with scrofulous blood are dyed, + I note in poems clear with scrupulous art + What my keen eyes in these dark deeps descried. + + And if I need a subject, I am able + To stretch myself on the dissecting table, + And drive the scalpel into my own heart. + + + + THE CAPITAL. + + + A dolorous fruit is the vast capital. + Its bursten skin and pulp too ripened dye + Opulently their rich rottenness + With green gold, violet, and red phosphorus. + + Oozing a sickly sweet, thick, cancerous juice, + Its spongy flesh melts in the mouth, and in + Its pensive poisons germinate the rank, + Perverted sins of fever-tortured brains. + + So strange its spice, so exquisite its taste,-- + A macerated ginger in a rare elixir,-- + I plunged my teeth in it with greedy haste. + + But dizziness I ate, and madness drank. + And that is why I trail a debile frame, + With my youth dying in the husk of my strength. + + + + THE PENITENT. + + + The penitent of cities damned am I. + In shameful taverns where rank liquors flow, + And in new Sodoms viciously aglow, + Where outrage hides its lusts with murder nigh, + + I watch in flaring nights with mournful eye, + And shuddering hear what monsters still we grow. + And all the crimes of men oppress me so + I call for vengeance to the angered sky. + + Wrathful as prophets went in Holy Writ, + I walk with haggard cheek in public places, + Confessing sins that I do not commit. + + And the Pharisees cry out with upturned faces: + "I thank thee, God, that I am not as this + Infamous poet by thy judgment is!" + + + + "ET ERITIS SICUT DII." + + + Sick Artist, from the world around thee shrinking + To nurse the high ideal of thine Art, + Give thou no place to Nature in thy thinking, + That foolish, fertile slut obscene and stinking-- + To the Artificial consecrate thy heart. + + In spite of reed-pipes and loud songs of marriage, + Be thou remote, Reality desert, + The blood and flesh of women proud of carriage, + The flabby flesh of women thou disparage, + Deny their beauty which is only dirt. + + Are thy tired spirit and thy parched mouth aching + For the cooling, carnal draught of their caress? + This is a thirst that thou canst best be slaking, + Swooning among thy lamp-lit bottles, breaking + The odorous seals of drunken dizziness. + + Dream drunk with rum, whose tropic-heated spices + Ferment into a scented wine that joins + Thy subtle spirit in voluptuous vices + With negro women whose smooth flesh entices + Thy lubric hand to their anointed loins. + + Drink kirsch, as turbulent as cascades shaded + By forests where the maidens bathe their feet; + Musked maraschino, sucked by mouths pomaded + In the sick air of brothels golden-braided + By those who queen it on the yielding seat; + + And, hypocrite with ice one cannot sunder + Out of his flame, drink kümmel, whose bright feast + Of boreal snow-masked fire evokes the wonder + Of roses under snow, O roses ... under + Archangel heavens women of the East. + + And, for its green of bindweed-tangled fancies, + Drink absinthe, which shall open out to thee + Those forests where the fairy Vivien dances, + And the sage Merlin with her feet entrances + In the hoarse brushwood by the bitter sea. + + Then to thy reeling brain shall dreams come sailing, + Upon the calm bed where thy body sank, + And thou shalt see dissolved in shadows paling, + All earthly things around thee, failing, failing, + While brighter surge the visions rank on rank. + + Behold! Among the wan blue vapours, steaming + Before the scented, sounding sunrise, glows + A belt of glaciers whose thin peaks of dreaming + Mirrored upon an azure lake are gleaming + In the tropic valley guarded by their snows. + + The leaves of mangoes, palms, and fig-trees sighing + Are wafting coolness o'er the billowing grass, + Where, garlanded like flowers, are women lying, + Bathing their lily limbs, beneath the flying + Jewels of furtive humming-birds that pass. + + And a cascade of dazzling nakednesses + Falls from the peaks of glaciers in shoals, + And every following body holds and presses + The one that went before, holds and caresses; + A living stream of beauty rolls and rolls. + + Arms, loins, and thighs are linked and intertwining, + Lightnings are playing on a vaporous mesh + Of luminous hair and supple limbs combining, + And from the lofty peaks of glaciers shining + For ever falling are new waves of flesh. + + Drink every drop of this pure wine, and waste + In thine embraces all these limbs unreal. + Lie in thy bed of snow, and, undebased, + Enjoy all flesh in thine own flesh, and taste + The monstrous joy of soiling the Ideal. + + + + VENGEANCE. + + + Woman with heart stabbed by a hidden wrong, + Whose vengeful fingers, proud, and tapering long, + Have strapped thy naked lover in his sleep + Down to the bed, where now his wild eyes weep + Their scalding tears like vitriol, and stare + On broken furniture and carpets where + Weapons, clothes, flowers are in mad medley cast, + In sheets still with his kisses warm, thou hast + To soldiers prostituted thee, and spent + Their vigour with thy body's vehement + Surging of spasms quivering under them; + But what thought, like a hideous diadem + Of thorns, hath rent thy forehead, when the third, + His white flesh scarcely sated, having heard + Thy lustful moaning till his heart grew sick, + Looked, as a bitch looks beaten with a stick, + To the black, frantic face of thy betrayer, + And asked with plaintive murmur: "Shall I slay her?" + + + + THE SONG OF THE FORGES. + + + O frenzied forges with your noise and blaring, + Red, reeking fires that comb dishevelled skies, + Your hollow rumbling is like stifled swearing, + And the grassed earth about you burns and dies. + + When blind, mad man, intent on gain and plunder, + Thinks he is matter's master, in your maw + Lugubriously rolls a hollow thunder, + That says: We forge and forge, without a flaw, + + The chains from which thou hast not wit to save thee, + O foolish man! we rivet link by link + The shackles which for ever shall enslave thee. + Sweat, pant, and fill the furnace to the brink, + + Throw in the coal, and pour the crackling casting + Through the cut sand, beat, crush the pig to shape, + Temper the sword, sheet, deck, and rig with masting + The tyrant ships that sweep the sea with grape, + + Crowd with machines the hamlet and the haven, + To prison thee more deep than dungeons held + In durance making thee a pauper craven... + Stupid humanity! we weld and weld + + With the vile toil disease beyond reclaiming, + And imbecility, and discontent, + Murder, and hate that sets the mansion flaming, + Bloody revolt and heavy punishment. + + We forge the fate of every generation; + We crush the father and the child as well, + Spitting at heavens that shake with consternation + The soot and coal of our relentless hell! + + See! to the stainless blue of skies upcurling + Our towering chimneys' belched, polluted breath, + Above the waste and ravaged lands unfurling + Their sable flags of slavery and death! + + + + HERMAPHRODITE. + + + Rosy and naked, pure as a flower divine, + The mystic being of old stories sleeps, + Stretched in the grass like a bough of eglantine, + In the flowery clearing in the forest deeps. + + Upon his folded arm he rests his head; + The sleeping kisses of the sun repose + Upon his delicate body softly spread, + And shimmer from his shoulders to his toes. + + And near him, with a murmur as of bees, + Runs the clear brook through grass and lily flowers, + Under the fig-trees' laden boughs, and flees, + Winding along the tangled secret bowers. + + Sweet sorcery of the flesh! A sphinx above thee + Asks the thrilled senses to resolve desires! + With shame and terror tremble all who love thee, + And they who see thee burn with thousand fires. + + Seeing thy more than human loveliness + Women and youths their envious glances dart; + They sigh with lowered eyes, and weep, and press + Sometimes their hand upon their maddened heart. + + "Where is the heavenly goddess," so they cry, + "Whose loveliness can match thy perfect frame? + And what young god, all sun and spring, can vie + With all this freshness blent with tender flame?" + + O to drink madly on one mouth the kisses + Of Aphrodite and Adonis both, + And, trembling, to discover all blent blisses + In the same frame to no perversions loth! + + Faust had left Margaret for thee, and lewd + Anacreon had never lost a day on + Bathyllus, Sappho would not have pursued + In her escape Erinna, no nor Phaon. + + Under thy foot earth lapped with pallid flames + Trembles, and all the flowers die where it hovers + Man clips no more the woman, and hot dames + Enlace their arms no more around young lover + + O last ideal of decaying races, + Mortal revealer of best beauties, thy + Poisons poured lavishly in thine embraces + Have made the ancient cities rot and die. + + And now to us thou comest, while uncloses + Under thy feet a dawn that pales the day's; + And poets, mad with incense and with roses, + Laud thee with chants of glory, love, and praise. + + Sweet being, grant to us thy sweetest blisses! + We drag ourselves under thy conquering feet, + While, in a downy drunkenness, thy kisses + Gather our last and loveliest heart's beat. + + + + THE DAYS OF YORE. + + + I have inhaled love like a garland sprent + With morning dew, and fragrant with a scent + That set my kisses fluttering over it, + As butterflies of silk and velvet flit. + + And savoured it like some fruit from the South, + Whose luscious pulp melts slowly in the mouth. + + And, cups of sapphire effervescing bright, + Blue eyes have made me drunk with spring's delight! + And, ruby cups brimmed with a blood that seethed, + Lips have a dizziness upon me breathed!... + + --Fall o'er the past, ye mists of memory! + And now, thou deep, swart night envelop me! + In thy wan winding-sheet my heart enfold, + To sleep alone, and motionless, and cold. + + + +VALÈRE GILLE. + +1867--. + + + ART. + + + What use is action? We have thought until + The world is but the shadow of our dreams. + What if the sap in all the gardens teems, + Sunk back upon itself is our limp will. + + The mind has ravaged space, and we are ill + With what we know; yet knowledge only seems, + Upon life's verge a net of cheating gleams; + And my possessions leave me tired and chill. + + But thou alone, O torch of sacred Art, + With first, primeval beauty warm the heart, + And flash thy multiple glimpses of the Ideal; + + And thou, O Poet, make lost Eden shine + Within us, and behind the seeming real + Show us the essences of things divine. + + + + THERMOPYLÆ. + + + The sombre gorge is only lighted by + The bucklers on the beeches. Near their chief + The warriors, with no fear and with no grief, + Await their fate. And now the dawn is nigh. + + To-morrow Greece shall mourn them: they must die. + The priests have read the auguries like a leaf. + Hydarnes, with the footstep of a thief, + Slinks with his traitor where the shadows lie. + + So be it. Under arrows showering thick + By shadows shielded they will fight, beneath + The overhanging rocks, with pike and teeth. + + And when the sword breaks they will grip the stick. + They share a few figs for their breakfast, right + Calmly. They with Pluto sup to-night. + + + + A NAVAL BATTLE. + + + The fleets rush headlong o'er the sea, and lock + In a loud, long impact deafening the ear; + The hissing arrows make the heavens blear, + The heavy waves are clashing shock on shock. + + Ares is with us, driving like a flock + The Persian ships which, when they staggering rear, + The rostrum pierces till, in mad career, + They crowd the shore and shatter on the rock. + + The dusk climbs, but the most illustrious chase + The coward, and thrust from every vantage-place. + But now the moon breaks through the clouds, to show + + Our native land kissed by its tender ray, + The glittering summits and the silvered bay, + And the free sea flowered with corpses of the foe. + + + +ALBERT GIRAUD. + +1860--. + + + THE TRIBUNES. + + + The people have had masters whose strong faces, + Charged with imperious will, their masses cowed, + Who spoke with regal voices ringing loud + To draw out of their sleep lethargic races. + + The word they cast down from the market-places + In the four winds of Heaven vibrated proud + With bitter love and majesty unbowed, + Threatening to make of cities desert spaces. + + The crowd remember yet their magic names, + And echo them with thunderous acclaims + Of welcome to the coming victory. + + The legendary marble where they stand + Rises on history's threshold, and their hand + Wrathfully sways the billowing days to be. + + + + CORDOVANS. + + + You leathers red with autumn's, victory's dyes! + In some old oratory's night you blaze, + Where sleeps the heavy splendour of dead days; + You with your hues of epic, evening skies, + Mysterious as fiery meres of gold, + You dream of those who trailed their swords, and bowed + Above your cushions stamped with wafers proud + Their gashed, tanned faces in the days of old, + With an odour of adventure in their capes. + Red leathers whom the peace of hangings drapes, + You are like tragic sunsets, worn were ye + By legendary heroes, who enriched + The Kings they served, and all the world bewitched, + And who upon a copper, kindled sea, + You Cordovans dyed deep with war and pride, + Embarked in summer cool of eventide! + You are chimerical with gathered lives; + Of new Americas you guard the gleams, + You sunk in dazzled and vermilion dreams, + In you the soul of ancient suns survives! + + + + FLORISE. + + + Richly mature, upon the bed of joy + Strown with crushed flowers, Florise bends lovingly + Her heavy-lidded great eyes o'er the boy + Whom she has made man ere his puberty. + + Fair as a sunset that on roses lingers, + Sweet as the wind is he in lilac-trees. + With gratitude he fondles the deft fingers + That guided him into love's mysteries. + + Heavy with glad fatigue, their senses thus + Dream, but breaking off their amorous + Embrace, as though a cry she would withhold, + + She feels her heart within her pale, and presses + Her face upon the pillow, for she guesses + Her too young lover sees her growing old. + + + + HECATE. + + + The moon has a kiss that clings + Like those of cold women whom + Minions with fertile womb + Drive from the bed of Kings. + + She weeps her white distress + On spires, and lays a sheet + Of suppliant light at the feet + Of crosses pitiless. + + But breaks her prayer, which is vain, + And raises herself again, + In pale and barren pride; + + And casts, with the cruel glance + Of her lidless eye, far and wide + Hysteric radiance. + + + + IN THE REIGN OF THE BORGIAS. + + + In the gilt palace where young slave-girls show + Like bunches of gold grapes their breasts erect, + In a soft room with burning drapery decked, + The conclave's end illumes a golden glow. + + Near pages who their yellow hair have smoothed, + And whom the evening's kisses feminize, + Sit, red as lava in their gorgeous dyes, + The Roman Cardinals, by music soothed. + + They worship flesh; and the unnatural, thinned + Voices of eunuchs quiver o'er their napes + With a thrill of pleasure like the lust of rapes; + + And Roman girls dishevel in the wind, + In the fantastic, smoky night of porches, + Their manes of fire like wildly streaming torches. + + + + ABSORPTION. + + + Woman, my longing to be nothing clings + To thee, whose stagnant eyes are pools of night, + Liquid indifference, where is no light + Save the kaleidoscope of imaged things. + + Thy sable hair, so sultry and so fresh, + When I untie it, billows o'er thy shape + Like evening's shadow o'er a pale landscape, + And slowly eats the whiteness of thy flesh. + + The sapid kiss of thy rich-moulded mouth + Falls, with no impulse known, and with no sound, + As ripened fruit falls heavy to the ground, + In the slow silence of the autumn's drouth. + + As into water I descend in thee; + And I am cradled vaguely on thy breasts, + Which are as white as billows' foamy crests, + And heave above thy breathing like the sea. + + Thy cadenced walk is like old liturgies; + It trails with royal rhythm its broad verses, + And with grave grace before mine eyes rehearses + All the Gregorian chant's solemnities. + + O save me from my murderous dreams, thou bright + Bosom of silence, mouth that sates the sense, + Urn of oblivion, pillow of indolence; + Annihilate me in thy bosom's night! + + My weakness by thy savorous strength is nursed, + And in thy gaping love absorbing me + I taste the time when all I am shall be + In Nature's vast and flowering corpse dispersed. + + + + THE YOUTH AMONG THE LILIES. + + + In the voluptuous Room of Lilies, made + As a deaf ear by the unhealthy shade + Of vinous tapestry wherein ferments + The sunset, drunk with Church and censer scents + The dying Dauphin, with his woman's slow + Eyes, sees at his feet the ermine snow + Of the hushed carpet, and the oriel's slit + Sifting a trembling glimmer on to it + Of lying lilacs and of faëry roses, + And the pale youth his heavy lids uncloses + And sees upon the heaven's crimson rim + Women whose lifted breasts call unto him. + + + + RESIGNATION. + + + I have fought against myself, I have cried in pain, + Writhed breathless in my wounded spirit's night, + And with my life in rags, a piteous sight, + I come out of the Hell which is my brain. + + I know full well to-day, my dream was mad; + My love of autumn was a crime, no doubt; + And like a nail I tear the yearning out + That my too simple heart for childhood had. + + My cross! Lance in my side! I bring to you + This verse like Christmas evenings white and calm, + When the sovran palpitation of the palm + Hovers against the heaven's freezing blue; + + This verse whereinto all my grief shall pass, + Verse of a man resigned, misunderstood, + Verse into which my love must shed its blood, + Long bleeding, like a sunset on stained glass. + + + + VOICES. + + + Voice of my weeping blood, voices you of my flesh, + My panting, frantic flesh, O pensive voices, + Louder than when a surging crowd rejoices, + Hush! lest the dear, dead past should bloom afresh! + + Be silent, you long voices! Memory closes + On velvet voices, voices of flowers of old + That dreamt in her flesh and sang in her voice of gold; + Voice of lascivious jasmine and moss roses, + + Be silent! Hush my sorrow and my shame! + Into my heart silence and winter came: + Silence is snowing into my heart's dark vast. + + Snow, snow, O silence! Spread your cool above + Hell's roses, cover up their fires at last, + And in the shadow slain my only love. + + + +VICTOR KINON. + +1873--. + + + THE RESURRECTION OF DREAMS. + + + It is as warm as when the lilacs' scent + Is with the fragrance of magnolias blent, + When you can hear the seeds crack in the ground, + When first your face and hands are summer-browned + When every now and then in heavy drops + The rain begins, and all as sudden stops.... + Slate and rust clouds voluptuously mass + Their bulk o'er the green corn and nibbled grass + Of fields that billow to yon purpled woods, + Which, through bronzed clouds, a sheaf of sunbeam floods. + + Sweating, I climb the slope, where, like a long + White ribbon, runs the brook and sings his song. + A noisy cock pursues a clucking hen. + A sparrow flies with bits of hay. And then + Such is the silence you can hear from far, + Where the red roof-tiles of the village are, + The heavy, steady humming of the bees ... + (Can there be blossoms on the willow-trees?) + Here is the wood.--Pale with surprise you see + The ardent silence and the mystery + Whose sap swells in the branches which it studs + With downy catkins and with sticky buds. + + Under the elm-trees' violaceous shade + The fresh anemones have snowed the glade; + The undergrowth bathes in a fawn half-light; + The pure air crackles with a lizard's flight; + And there, where on the hazel bough is poured + A ray of sunshine darted like a sword, + A trembling cloud of yellow pollen rises.... + + And now mysterious mirth my heart surprises + With words and cries of love and tenderness, + And an intoxicated glow and stress, + Because the spring with legendary dyes, + The white of snow and blue of Paradise, + And tender green of leaves all dewy sprent, + With nightingales, and honeysuckle's scent, + And chafers hanging heavily from blue + Lilacs, wet with rosy diamonds too, + With the clear crystal and mad pearls that gush + Out of the beak of quail and pairing thrush, + All the divine, forgotten spring reminds + My heart of ardours where the pathway winds!... + I love! My breast is full of flowers and birds! + I shall break out in ecstasy of words! + I love!--But whom?--I care not whom nor how! + I love, with all my blood in frenzy now, + And all the sighs that heave my breast, the maid + + Who smiling comes beneath her cool sunshade.... + + + + MIDNIGHT. + + + The earth is black with trees of velvet under + A low sky laden with great clouds of thunder. + The gnomes of midnight haunt the dark, whose ears, + With luxury veiled, hear as a deaf man hears. + One is uneasy in one's stifling sheets, + And so uneasily the poor heart beats + That, bathed in sweat, at last you leave your bed, + And as in dream about the chamber tread. + You throw the window open. Not a sound. + Surely the wind is swooning on the ground, + And listening to some holy, mystic birth + Preparing in the entrails of the earth. + You listen, earnest, to your heart's loud shock + Beating with pained pulsations like a clock. + Then to the window-sill you pull a chair, + And watch the clouds weigh down the helpless air + Over the gardens whence, in sick perfumes, + Exudes the sweat of trees and wildered blooms. + + + + HIDING FROM THE WORLD. + + + Shall not our love be like the violet, Sweet? + And open in the dewy, dustless air + Its dainty chalice with blue petals, where + The shade of bushes makes a shy retreat? + And we will frame our daily happiness + By joining hearts, lips, brows in rapt caress + Far from the world, its noises and conceit ... + Shall we not hide our modest love between + Trees wafting cool on flowers and grasses green? + + + + THE GUST OF WIND. + + + I closed my window, lit my lamp, reclined + My temple on my hand, and sadly thought: + "Now let me read, and dream, and rest my mind ... + But, O my God, my heart is so distraught! + Yet, let me read." It was a traveller's book. + + O sailing on broad rivers, on whose shore + Are baobabs and mangroves, while the song + Of curious birds wafts with the ship along, + Together with the tiger's grating roar.... + + A sudden gust of wind the window shook, + Followed afar off by continued whining. + + I throw the window open wide, to look + Into the night, and see, with white teeth shining + In mocking grin, Death pass upon a steed + With yellow teeth, making its wet flanks bleed + With spurs of bone, and in the wind its mane + Tossing, together with his winding-sheet; + See Death, while all the trees moan out in pain, + Race under clouds lit by a livid sheet, + And brandishing above him his bright scythe! + + Afar, Italian poplars curve their slim + And parallel trunks beneath the wind of him; + Dishevelled willows in the shadow writhe, + And the earth, looking at the monster, pants.... + + Now he is swallowed by the raucous squall. + Long I stand gazing at the rise and fall + Of foliage broken by a rending sob, + When suddenly the wind, with hollow throb,-- + Lugubrious present from the Reaper!--heaves + Into the room a flight of withered leaves. + + + + THE SETTING SUN. + + + The stainless snow and the blue, + Lit by a pure gold star, + Nearly meet; but a bar + Of fire separates the two. + + A rime-frosted, black pinewood, + Raising, as waves roll foam, + Its lances toothed like a comb, + Dams the horizon's blood. + + In the tomb of blue and white + Nothing stirs save a crow, + Unfolding solemnly slow + Its silky wing black as night. + + + +CHARLES VAN LERBERGHE. + +1861-1907. + + + ERRANT SYMPATHY. + + + From some unknown horizon, + Wafted from far away, + Fraternal sympathy flies on + The scented breath of the May. + + Now dreamers in cloudland turrets, + And maidens ripe with the time, + Up the white steps of their spirits + Feel loves invisible climb. + + They know not from what glances, + In the pensive peace of the hour, + There are unknown lips in their fancies + Opening with theirs in flower. + + So keen and kind the bliss is, + That their foreheads, younger made + By these intangible kisses, + Guard dreams that never fade. + + + + THE GARDEN INCLOSED. + + + _Fulcite me floribus._ + + Dear is thy bandage, Love, + To my heavy lids that it closes; + It weighs like the sweet burden of + Sunshine on frail, white roses. + + I walk as to voices that call, + I seem over waters to hover, + And every wave, like a lover, + Folds round my feet as they fall. + + Who has unloosened my tresses, + As through the dark places I came? + Girdled with unseen caresses, + I plunge into billows of flame. + + My lips, where my soul is crooning, + Open in rapt desire, + Like a burning blossom swooning + Over a river on fire. + + * * * * * + + _Dormis et cor meum vigilat._ + + My hands lie for my breasts to soothe, + Of playing and of distaffs tired; + My white hands, my hands desired, + Seem asleep on waters smooth. + + Far from futile, waste repining, + On this my beauty's throne, + Frail, calm, gentle Queens reclining, + My royal hands dream of their own. + + And while mine eyes are closed, and still is + The golden hair my breast that robes, + I am the virgin holding lilies, + I am the infant holding globes. + + * * * * * + + _Si floruit vinea._ + + In mulberry time they sang my lips that yield + To keen caresses, + And, like the rain upon the summer field, + My long, warm tresses. + + In time of vintaging they sang mine eyes, + Mine eyes half-closed, + Veiled by tired lids and lashes unreposed, + Like autumn skies. + + I have all gleams and savours, I am supple + As a bindweed in hedgerow bowers, + My breasts are curved as flames are, or a couple + Of sister flowers. + + * * * * * + + _Ego dilecto meo et dilectus meus mihi._ + + When thou dost plunge into mine eyes thine eyes, + I am all within mine eyes. + + When thy mouth unties my mouth, + My love is nothing save my mouth. + + When thy fingers lightly touch my hair, + I am not if it be not there. + + When they touch my breasts at any time, + Like a sudden fire to them I climb. + + Is it this which is to thee most dear? + Here my soul is, all my life is here. + + * * * * * + + _In a perfume of white roses_ + _She sits, dream fast;_ + _And the shadow is beautiful as though an angel there_ + _were glassed._ + + _The gloam descends, the grove reposes;_ + _The leaves and branches through_ + _On the gold Paradise is opening one of blue._ + + _A last faint wave breaks on the darkening shore._ + _A voice that sang just now is murmuring._ + _A murmuring breath is breathing ... now no more._ + _In the silence petals fall...._ + + * * * * * + + The angel of the morning star came down + Into her garden, and he spake to her: + + "Come with me, I will show thee many a lake, + Valleys delightful, secret forest bowers, + Where still, in other dreams than ours, + The subtle spirits wake + Of the earth." + + She stretched her arms, with laughter + Looking between her lashes on + The angel flaming in the sun, + And, when he moved, in silence followed after. + + And while they wandered to the groves of shade + The Angel round her laid + His arm, and set + Among her bright hair longer than his wings + The flowers he gathered dewy wet + Upon the branches over her. + + + + THE TEMPTATION. + + _Shapes that coiled in the woods and waters,_ + _Glittering sons and radiant daughters._ + --D.G. ROSSETTI. + + + A silence softened the declining day, + A moan, and then a love-sigh died away. + Apples were falling one by one between + The grasses warm and shadows emerald green. + + The sun sank down from branch to branch; a bird + Singing among the stirless leaves was heard. + A scent of soft and swooning blossoms strayed, + Like a slow sea-wave, through the deepening shade. + + And, to hear better her who comes, with bent + Eyes, as in dream, and heart to meet her sent, + By paths where never sound the silence jars, + + Voluptuous evening, in the heated air, + With hands of subtle and accomplice care, + Spread the insidious net of oblique stars. + + + + ART THOU WAKING? + + + Art thou waking, my perfume sunny, + My perfume of gilded bees, + Art thou floating along the breeze, + My perfume of sweet honey? + + In the hush of the gloam, when my feet + Roam through the rich garden-closes, + Dost thou tell I am coming, thou smell + Of my lilacs, and my warm roses? + + Am I not like in this gloam a + Cluster of fruit concealed + By the leaves, and by nothing revealed, + Save in the night its aroma? + + Does he know, now the hour is dim, + That I am half opening my hair, + Does he know that it scents the air, + Does its odour reach to him? + + Does he feel I am straining my arms? + And that the lilies of my valleys + Are dewy with passion-balm + That for his touching tarries? + + + + ALL OF WHITE AND OF GOLD. + + + All of white and of gold + Are the pinions of my angels; + But Love + Hath pinions changing. + + His sweet wings are turn by turn + The colour of purple and roses, + And the crimson sea where uncloses + The kiss of the sun. + + The beautiful wings of my angels + Are very slow, + And open closed. + + But the agile wings of Love + Are impatient, + And like hearts never rest. + + + + THE RAIN. + + + The rain, my sister dear, + The summer rain warm and clear, + Gently flees, gently flies, + Through the moist atmosphere. + + Her collar of white pearls + has come undone in the skies. + Blackbirds sing with all your might, + Dance magpies! + Among the branches downward pressed, + Dance flowers, dance every nest, + All that comes from the skies is blest. + + To my mouth she approaches + Her wet lips of strawberries wild; + She has touched me with a mouth that smiled, + Everywhere at once, + With her millions of little fingers. + + On a lawn + Of sounding flowers, + From the dawn to the evening hours, + And from the evening to the dawn, + She rains and rains again, + She rains with might and main. + + Then the sun with golden hair + Dries the bare + Feet of the rain. + + + + AT SUNSET. + + + At sunset, + Swans of jet, + Or fairies sombre, + Come out of the flowers, and things, and us + These are our shadows. + + They advance: the day retreats. + Into the dusk they go, + With a gliding movement slow. + They gather, to each other call, + Seek with noiseless footfall, + And together all + With their wings so light + Make the great night. + + But the dawn in the sea + Awakes and takes + His torch, then he + Climbs gleam by gleam, + Climbs in a dream. + Out of the waves arise + His tresses fair, + And blue eyes. + + At once, as they were blown + Away, the shadows flee. + Where? Who can see? + Into the earth? Into the sea? + Into a flower? Into a stone? + Into us? + Who knows? + Their wings they close, + And now repose. + It is the morn. + + + + A BARQUE OF GOLD. + + + In a barque of the Orient + Maidens three are coming back, + Maidens three from the Orient + Are coming in a barque of gold. + + One is black, + Her hands the rudder hold, + On her curving lips with their essences of roses + She brings to us strange stories, + In the silence. + + One is brown, + She holds the full sail down, + And on her feet are wings, + An angel's mien to us she brings + In her motionless bearing. + + But one is fair, + At the prow she is sleeping, + As from the rising sun her hair + The wave is sweeping, + She brings us back in her eyes so bright + All the light. + + + + LILIES THAT SPIN. + + + Now in this April morning, sweet + With folded shadows and doves cooing, + The dear child with her shy conceit + What is she busy doing? + + The blonde trace where her footsteps go + Is lost in the grated garden's alleys; + I do not know, I do not know + The meaning of her cunning sallies. + + With a long gown down to her heel, + Pensive and slow, with a silent gesture + Upon the sun at a white wheel + She is spinning a blue linen vesture. + + And with blue eyes of bridal bliss + Smiling at her dream that glances, + Weaving golden foliages + Among the lilies of her fancies. + + + +GRÉGOIRE LE ROY. + +1862--. + + + THE SPINSTER PAST. + + + The old woman spins, and her wheel + Is prattling of old, old things; + As though to a doll she sings, + And memories over her steal. + + The hemp is yellow and long, + The old woman spins the thread, + Bending her white, weary head + Over the wheel's lying song. + + The wheel goes round with a whirl, + The yellow hemp is unwound, + She turns it round and round, + She is playing like a girl. + + The yellow hemp is unwound, + She sees herself a girl, + As blonde as the skeins that whirl, + She is dancing round and round. + + The wheel rolls round with a whirr, + And the hemp is humming as well, + She hears an old lover tell + And whisper his love for her. + + Her tired hands rest above + The wheel, its spinning is done, + And with the hemp are spun + Her memories of love. + + + + ROUNDEL OF OLD WOMEN. + + + Little old women, my thoughts, + The snow falls from the vast, + Death and uncertainty palls + All the things of the past. + + Why is my heart so chill + Under these skies overcast, + In these winters that last and last, + These winters calm and still? + + You little old women who glean, + Make a bonfire of your past, + Of your reeds snapped by the blast, + And of all your barren dreams. + + All that your sorrow remembers, + Burn it like dry brushwood, + And sit and warm your blood + Over the dying embers. + + And mumble in grief and dejection + Of the happy days of your youth, + And empty with fingers of ruth + The spindles of blue recollection. + + And when the cottage is damp + With the weeping of the night, + One of you will light, + Like a shaded, smoky lamp, + + --Oh! why must I weep and perish, + And nothing, nothing forget?-- + The best of memories yet, + The memory of Her you cherish. + + + + HANDS. + + + Glued like the eyes of a thief + At my heart's window-pane, gazing in, + Were two pale hands, hands of grief, + Hands as of Death, bone and skin. + + I shivered to see them stare, + Weird as the moon in the blue, + Lifting to me their despair, + As the hands of the damned might do. + + And He of those desolate hands, + Who was my visitor grim? + Death on my threshold stands, + Since I gazed on the hands of Him. + + It was not a blessing they shed, + Curst of a truth were they, + For I have longed to be dead, + Since I saw their ghastly ray. + + For the wine of my loving is sour, + And full of tears and of harm, + And deadens the bread of the hour + That is signed with their fatal charm. + + Hands of poison! Hands of despair! + Gestures of virgins of gloom! + You have shone on my house as a pair + Of candles a corpse illume! + + I have seen Hope close her door, + And my mourning is watching Death, + While the North wind is blowing o'er + My candle dead in His breath. + + + + MY EYES. + + + Poor eyes, you lamps that are failing, + How little remains of your glow? + Encroaching night is veiling + The things of the here-below. + + Or is your gathering gloaming + Indifference alone? + O eyes that once went roaming + To Beauty and the Unknown! + + You sink your lids like a curtain, + When Love goes by, a flame; + You know your sorrow is certain, + And age to you is shame. + + And yet, my heart's best praising, + O flameless lamps, is for you; + Through you my spirit gazing + First saw, and felt, and knew! + + You showed me the mountain steep, with + The sea and the stars above, + And all that my life is deep with: + My child, and death, and Love. + + + + MY HANDS. + + + My poor hands, so wan and faded, + Agile once as a bird, + My rhythms of speech you aided, + And by my brain you were stirred; + + Poor wrinkled hands, like two + Old women worn and wizened, + My thoughts run on, but you + In listlessness are prisoned. + + Yet I bless you, my hands, now that strife + Is done, and the heart reposes; + You taught me the touch of roses; + And the caresses of life. + + All the hands you touched, hands of brothers, + And of women I loved in dole, + And the faithful hands of mothers: + I bear you yet in my soul. + + + + SILENCES. + + + There is an age, sad age, and hour obscure, + When man, aweary of adventurous dreams, + Turns from the far horizon's lure + His eyes towards the Inn of Good Repose. + Then simple Thoughts and staid, + Like an eager, humble serving-maid, + With delicate cares discreet + Lull infinite regrets to sleep, + And kindle in the heart once more + The fire of memories of the yore, + And from the hearth drive hopes importunate, + That one by one may steal within the great + Silences. + + The silence of our memories + Whereon already falls the snow of years; + Love's silence, whose abandoned tomb + No tender hand makes bloom; + Silence of hopes long seeking, which + Have died like beggars in the ditch; + Silence of faith, whose torch has been put out + By life and doubt. + + These silences our brothers, in they glide, + Like white monks, rigid, stern, + And sit down, without speaking, at our side.... + Then we with Truth sojourn. + Ere they had come we saw but of the world + Its flowers and orchards pasturing our eyes, + But, when they entered in, our deeper souls + Explored, together with our thought, the night. + One of life's secrets each of them reveals, + One of fate's shadows each of them dispels, + And they can tell us whether we have walked + Along the road where God's hand pointed us. + Our friends, our children, all whose life seemed bound + Together with our own most intricately, + We see them far, alone in the great fight + Waged with Infinity, and Pain, and Death. + We thought that their hands which our hands have clasped, + And the long gazing of our eyes in theirs, + And that our voices uttering one thought, + And all our common hopes and self-same griefs, + And all our evenings lived beneath one lamp, + And all those hours upon one dial told, + The self-same clock of destiny-- + Sealed our converging fates for evermore! + Now suddenly we are alone, so far + From life that we can scan the vast expanse + That separates us and divides us all. + These pure child's eyes, these beautiful fondled hands, + These voices intertwined like woven flowers, + Have touched perhaps, and recognized each other, + But like to friends, or strangers almost, who + To-morrow will resume their separate way. + And now that silence from us far removes + The lies of love for which our senses longed, + Lo, in the universe our soul is lost! + The child of our own blood, who, piously, + Some last, last night will come to close our eyes, + How he is one, his fate how otherwise + Than ours, how far removed, and how alone! + He enters life! He is no more our own! + + Thus shall they go towards the call, + Till, lonely and despoiled of all, + Naked and poor we face the eternal hour! + And, seeing our heart as a temple with no god, + And closed our soul to every new delight, + Empty our hands, and in our eyes no sight, + We shall make question of ourselves: What tie + Unites this lowest, lamentable thing + We are ... to Immortality? + + + +MAURICE MAETERLINCK. + +1862--. + + + THE HOTHOUSE. + + + O hothouse in the forest deeps! + And your doors for ever closed! + And all there is beneath your dome! + And under my soul in your analogies! + + The thoughts of a princess who is hungry, + The weariness of a sailor in the desert, + A brass band at the windows of incurables. + + Go to the wannest corners! + You think of a woman fainted on a day of harvest, + There are postillions in the courtyard of the hospital; + Afar goes by a hunter of elks, become a nurse. + + Look around in the moonlight! + (O nothing here is in its place!) + You think of a mad woman before her judges, + A man-of-war at full sail on a canal, + Birds of night on lilies, + A knell at noon, + (Down yonder under these bell-glasses!) + A halting-place of sick men on the moorlands, + An odour of ether on a sunny day. + + My God! my God! when shall we have the rain, + And the snow and the wind in the hothouse! + + + + ORISON. + + + Pity my absence on + The threshold of my will! + My soul is helpless, wan, + With white inactions ill. + + In tasks abandoned stands + My soul with sobbing pale, + O'er shut things its tired hands + Tremble without avail. + + And while my heart breathes out + Bubbles of lilac dreams, + My soul is wafted about + In a wax moon's watery gleams; + + In a moonlight where glimmer the lorn + Lilies of the to-morrows; + A moonlight where nothing is born + But its hands in the shadow of sorrows. + + + + HOT-HOUSE OF WEARINESS. + + + O weariness blue in the breast! + Wedding the better sight, + In the weeping, wan moonlight, + Of my blue dreams with languor oppressed! + + This weariness blue evermore, + Where through the deep windows green, + As in a hot-house are seen, + With moon and with glass covered o'er, + + The mighty forests undying + Whose nightly forgetfulness, + Like a dream motionless, + On the roses of passion is lying; + + Where rises a slow water-beam, + Mingling the moon and the sky + In a glaucous, eternal sigh, + Monotonous as a dream. + + + + DARK OFFERING. + + + I bring my poor work, which + Is like the dreams of the dead, + And the moon on the fauna rich + Of my remorse is shed: + + With swords my wishes crowned, + Violet snakes that creep + Through my dreams and enlace in my sleep, + Lions in sunshine drowned, + + Lilies in far waters green, + Closed hands that never shall ope, + Red stems of hatred between + Sorrows of love without hope. + + Pity the song, Lord God! + And let my sad prayers rise, + While the scattered moon on the sod + Keeps night at the rim of the skies. + + + + THE HEART'S FOLIAGE. + + + Under the blue crystal bell + Of my reveries tired and ill, + My griefs intangible + Grow gradually still. + + Plants of symbols thronging, + Lilies of pleasures of old, + The slow palms of my longing, + Bind-weeds soft, mosses cold. + + Alone in the centre of them, + One rigid lily heaves + Its frail and pallid stem + Over the dolorous leaves. + + And in the gleams that it pours, + Like a gradual moon, towards the bare + Blue crystal heavens, soars + Its mystical white prayer. + + + + SOUL. + + + My soul! + O my soul too sheltered verily! + And these flocks of my desires in a hot-house! + Waiting for a tempest on the meadows! + + Let us go to the most feverish patients! + They have strange exhalations. + In the middle of them, I cross a battlefield with my + mother. + They are burying a fallen comrade at noon, + While the sentinels are eating their repast. + + Let us go also to the weakest: + They have strange perspirations! + Here is a sick bride, + Treason on the Sunday, + And little children in prison. + (And further on, through the vapour,) + Is this a dying woman at a kitchen's door! + Or a sister shelling peas at the bed's foot of an + incurable? + + And last of all let us go to the most sad: + (Last of all, for they have poisons.) + O! my lips accept the kisses of a wounded one! + + All the _châtelaines_ have died of hunger, this summer, in + the turrets of my soul! + Here is the daybreak entering the festival! + I catch a glimpse of sheep that stray on quays, + And there is a sail at the windows of the hospital. + + There is a long road from my heart unto my soul! + And all the sentinels are dead at their post! + + One day there was a poor little banquet in the suburbs of + my soul! + Hemlock was being mown one Sunday morning; + And all the virgins of the convent were watching vessels + passing on the canal, one day of fasting and of + sunshine, + While the swans were pining under a poisonous bridge; + They were pruning trees round the prison, + They were bringing medicines one afternoon in June, + And meals of patients were being spread at all the + horizons! + + My soul! + And the sadness of it all, my soul! and the sadness of + it all! + + + + LASSITUDE. + + + These kisses know no longer where to rest, + For blind and cold the eyes were they caressed; + Henceforth asleep in splendid reverie they + Watch dreamily, as in the grass dogs may, + The grey horizon-herded sheep-folk graze + Upon the turf the moon's dishevelled rays, + Kissed by the sun, dark as their life is dark; + Indifferent, without an envious spark + For pleasure's roses under them unclosing; + And this long, green, ununderstood reposing. + + + + TIRED WILD BEASTS. + + + O laughter and passion-sighs, + And sobs that the sick breast heaves! + Sick and with half-closed eyes + Among dishevelled leaves, + + My hate's hyenas slouching, + My sin's yellow dogs, and, large, + At the weary, pale desert's marge, + The lions of love are crouching! + + In a listless dream they lie, + And, languid and oppressed, + Under their colourless sky + They watch, and shall without rest, + + Temptation's sheep together, + Or one by one, depart, + And in the moon at tether + The passions of my heart. + + + + LUSTRELESS HOURS. + + + Here are old desires marching past, + Dream after dream reeling by, + Dream after dream failing fast; + Hope's days are doomed to die! + + To whom must we flee to-day! + No star to show us whereto; + But ice on our hearts grown gray, + And in the moon linen blue. + + Sob after sob is trapped! + Fireless the sick in the city, + The grass of the lambs is lapped + In snow, Sweet Saviour, pity! + + But I, till the sleep is done, + Await, I shall waken soon, + I wait for a little sun + On my hands iced by the moon. + + + + THE HOSPITAL. + + + Hospital! Hospital on the canal! + Hospital in July! + There is a fire in the room! + While ocean liners blow their whistle on the canal! + + (O! do not come near the windows!) + Emigrants are crossing a palace! + I see a yacht in the tempest! + I see flocks on all the ships! + (It is better to keep all the windows closed, + One is almost sheltered from the outside.) + It is like a hot-house on snow, + You are going with a woman's churching on a stormy day, + You have a glimpse of plants shed o'er a linen sheet, + There is a conflagration in the sun, + And I cross a forest full of wounded men. + + O! now at last the moonlight! + + A jet of water rises in the middle of the room! + A troop of little girls half open the door! + + I catch a glimpse of lambs on an island in the meadows! + And of beautiful plants on a glacier! + And lilies in a marble vestibule! + There is a festival in a virgin forest! + And an oriental vegetation in a cave of ice! + + Listen! the locks are opened! + And the ocean liners stir the water of the canal! + + O! but the sister of charity poking the fire! + + All the beautiful green rushes of the banks are on fire! + A vessel full of wounded men rocks in the moonlight! + All the King's daughters are in a bark in the storm! + And the Princesses are going to die in a field of hemlock! + + O! do not leave the lattices ajar! + Listen: the ocean liners still are blowing their whistle on + the horizon! + + Some one is being poisoned in a garden! + People are banqueting in the house of their enemies! + + There are stags in a town that is besieged! + And a menagerie amid the lilies! + There is a tropical vegetation in a coal-pit! + A flock of sheep is crossing an iron bridge! + And the lambs of the meadow are coming sadly into the room! + + Now the sister of charity lights the lamps, + She brings the patients their meal, + She has closed the windows on the canal, + And all the doors to the moon. + + + + WINTER DESIRES. + + + I weep for lips whose brief + Red no kisses hath known, + And for longing left to moan + In a reaped, rich harvest of grief. + + The rain must pour and pour! + Or the snow is thick on the sward, + While crouching wolves do ward + My threshold of dreams evermore, + + And watch in my soul ever sighing, + With eyes in the past nigh dead, + All the blood that of old was shed + Of lambs on the hard ice dying. + + Only the moon with its chill, + Monotonous sadness lights, + While autumn the thin grass blights, + My longing with hunger ill. + + + + ROUNDELAY OF WEARINESS. + + + I sing the dirges pale + Of kisses lost and cold; + On love's thin grass I behold + Weddings of them that ail. + + In my slumber voices sing; + How nonchalant they are! + And in streets without sun or star + Lilies are opening. + + These things my heart desired, + These flights that backward fall, + Are the poor in a palace hall, + And in the dawn candles tired. + + At the grim night's threshold I launch + Mine eyes far out, and know + That the moon, with its linen slow + And blue, my dreams will stanch. + + + + BURNING GLASS. + + + Ancient hours I behold + Under regrets ripening, + And fairer flora spring + From their secrets' azure mould. + + Desires blow through my spirit. + O glass upon my desires! + And the withered grass my soul fires, + When breathing memories stir it. + + It grows with my thoughts for mould, + And in the blue fleeing fast + I see the griefs of the past + Their flower-petals unfold. + + My soul through memories gropes, + Feels the touch of their + Curtaining dead mohair; + And greens with other hopes. + + + + LOOKS OF EYES. + + + O these looks of poor, tired eyes! + And yours and mine! + And those that are no more and those that shall be! + And those that never shall arrive and those that notwithstanding + do exist! + Some seem to be visiting the poor on a Sunday; + Some are like sick people with no home; + Some are like lambs in a meadow covered with linen. + And these unusual looks! + There are some under whose vault are people watching + the execution of a virgin in a closed room, + And some that make one think of unknown melancholies! + Of peasants at the windows of a factory, + Of a gardener who has turned weaver, + Of a summer afternoon in a museum of waxen images, + Of the thoughts of a queen who watches a sick man in + the garden, + Of an odour of camphor in the forest, + Of shutting a princess up in a tower, some festal day, + Of sailing for a whole week on a warm canal. + Pity all those who come out with short steps like convalescents + at harvest time! + Pity all those who look like children gone astray at + meal-time! + Pity the eyes of the wounded man who looks up at the + surgeon, + His looks like tents under the storm! + Pity the looks of the tempted virgin! + (O! rivers of milk are going to flee in the darkness! + And the swans are dead amid the serpents!) + And the looks of the virgin who succumbs! + Princesses abandoned in swamps without an issue! + And these eyes wherein vessels in full sail vanish lit by + the tempest! + And the pity of all these looks which suffer with not + being otherwhere! + And all the sufferings indistinct and yet diverse! + And these that never any one will understand! + And these poor looks nigh mute! + And these poor looks that whisper! + And these poor stifled looks! + + Here in our midst one thinks one is in a castle which + serves as a hospital! + And so many others look like tents, lilies of war, on the + convent's narrow lawn! + And so many others look like wounded men being + tended in a hot-house! + And so many others look like a sister of charity on an + ocean liner where there are no sick! + + O! to have seen all these looks! + To have taken all these looks into oneself! + And to have exhausted mine in meeting them! + And henceforth not to be able any more to close my + eyes! + + + + THE SOUL IN THE NIGHT. + + + My soul in the end is tired; + Tired of her sad, sad state, + And of being undesired. + Sad and tired I await + Your hands upon my face. + + I await your pure hands, still + As angels of ice might be, + Till they bring the ring to me: + On my face your fingers chill, + Like a treasure under the sea. + + I await their healing deep, + Not to die in the sun, + To die without hope in the sun! + They wash my burning eyes, + Where so many poor ones sleep. + + Where so many swans on the sea, + Are stretching, lost on the main, + Their necks morose in vain, + Where along the gardens of winter, + The sick break roses in rain. + + I wait for your pure fingers yet, + Like angels of ice are they, + I wait till mine eyes they wet, + The withered grass of mine eyes, + Where the tired lambs are astray! + + + + SONGS. + + + I. + + Into a cave the maid she threw, + A sign upon the door she drew; + The maid forgot the light, the key + Fell down into the sea. + + She waited while the summer went: + More than seven years she was pent, + Every year a stranger passed. + + She waited while the winter went; + And while she waited, waited yet, + Her hair the light could not forget. + + It sought the light, and found it out, + It glided through the stones about, + And lit the rocks that held her pent. + + One eve again a passer-by, + He knew not what the radiance meant, + And dared not come anigh. + + He thinks a portent is foretold, + He thinks it is a well of gold. + He thinks the angels are at play, + He turns aside, and wends his way. + + + II. + + And if he come back some day, + What shall be said to him?-- + One for him waited, say, + Until her eyes grew dim.... + + And if again he spake, + And did not know me more?-- + Like a sister answer make, + He might be suffering sore.... + + And if he would be told + Where you are dwelling now?-- + Give him my ring of gold, + And bend your silent brow.... + + And if he miss the clock's tick, + And see the dust on the floor?-- + Show him the lamp's burnt wick, + Show him the open door.... + + And if his last he saith, + And ask how you fell asleep?-- + Tell him I smiled in death, + For fear lest he should weep.... + + + III. + + Three little maidens they have slain + To find out what their hearts contain + + The first of them was brimmed with bliss, + And everywhere her blood was shed + For full three years three serpents hiss. + + The second full of kindness sweet, + And everywhere her blood was shed, + Three lambs three years have grass to eat. + + The third was full of pain and rue, + And everywhere her blood was shed, + Three seraphim watch three years through. + + + IV. + + The maids with the bandaged eyes + (Do off the bands of gold) + The maids with the bandaged eyes + Are seeking their destinies.... + + Went in at the noon of day + (Keep on the bands of gold) + In at the gate went they + Of the palace of prairies gray.... + + Life saluting then, + (Tie close the bands of gold) + Life saluting then, + They never came out again. + + + V. + + The three blind sisters, + (Let not our hope grow cold) + The three blind sisters + Have their lamps of gold. + + Into the tower they climb, + (We, you, and they) + Into the tower they climb, + Wait till the seventh day.... + + Ah! said the first one, + (Still hopes the heart, and fights) + Ah! said the first one, + I can hear our lights.... + + Ah! said the second, bending, + (They, you, and we) + Ah! said the second, bending, + It is the King ascending.... + + Nay, said the saintliest, + (Still be our courage stout) + Nay, said the saintliest, + Our lights have all gone out.... + + + VI. + + The seven virgins of Orlamonde, + When the fairy had passed away, + The seven virgins of Orlamonde, + Sought the gates of day. + + Have lit the wick of their seven lanterns, + Have opened, flight by flight, + The door of full four hundred chambers, + But have not found the light ... + + They come unto the sounding caverns, + Go down, with courage cold, + And in the lock of a closed portal + Find a key of gold. + + Through the chinks they see the ocean, + They are afraid of death, + Dare not ope, knock at the portal, + With bated breath. + + + VII. + + She had three diadems of gold, + To whom did she give them? + + Does one unto her parents bring: + And they have bought three reeds of gold, + And kept it till the Spring. + + Gives one unto her lovers all: + And they have bought three nets of silver, + And kept it till the Fall. + + One she to her children brings: + And they have brought three iron rings, + And chained it up the Winter long. + + + VIII. + + Towards the palace she came-- + The sun was scarcely rising-- + Towards the palace she came, + The knights all gazed, surmising, + Silent was every dame. + + She stopped before the gate-- + The sun was scarcely rising-- + She stopped before the gate; + They heard the Queen descending, + And the King questioning her. + + Where are you wending, where are you wending? + One scarce can see, take care-- + Where are you wending, where are you wending? + Does some one wait for you there? + But she made answer not. + + She came down towards the Stranger,-- + Take care, one scarce can see-- + She came down towards the Stranger; + The Stranger kissed the Queen, + No word did either say, + But went straightway. + + The King at the gate was weeping;-- + Take care, one scarce can see-- + The King at the gate was weeping; + They heard the Queen departing, + They heard the leaves down-sweeping. + + + IX. + + You have lighted the lamps,-- + O! the sun in the garden! + You have lighted the lamps, + The sun through the fissures slants, + Open the gates of the garden! + + The keys of the doors are lost, + We must wait, we must wait always, + The keys are fallen from the tower, + We must wait, we must wait always, + We must wait for other days ... + + Other days shall open the doors, + The forest keeps the bolts, + Around us burn the holts, + It is the light of the dead leaves, + Which burn on the doors' thresholds ... + + The other days are wearisome, + The other days are also shy, + The other days will never come, + The other days shall also die, + We too shall die here by and bye. + + + X. + + I have sought for thirty years, my sisters, + Where hides he ever? + I have sought for thirty years, my sisters, + And found him never ... + + I have walked for thirty years, my sisters, + Tired are my feet and hot, + He was everywhere, my sisters, + Existing not ... + + The hour is sad in the end, my sisters, + Take off my shoon, + The evening is dying also, my sisters, + My sick soul will swoon ... + + Your years are sixteen, my sisters, + The far plains are blue, + Take you my staff, my sisters, + Seek also you ... + + + +GEORGES MARLOW. + +1872.--. + + + WOMEN IN RESIGNATION. + + + On Your poor hands pierced by the nail, + With hope's long clinging, the old + Women have rested their cold + Souls without feeling and frail, + + In the hush You are dreaming in + This night, good Lord! And they sing + To the prodigals wandering + In the wildernesses of sin: + + They are saying, these voices in pain, + They must suffer long until + The heavenly dawn shall fill + Their songs with brightness again, + + That since You have wept above + The sins of the mad human race, + They must wash with tears their face, + And pray to You long in love. + + On Your poor hands pierced by the nail, + With hope's long clinging, the old + Women have rested their cold + Souls without feeling and frail. + + + + SOULS OF THE EVENING. + + + While the spindle merrily sings, + Old women sing your complaint, + The gas-lamps are misty and faint, + And the night to the water clings. + + Now Jesus walks where greens + The dark, cobbled alley, and rests + His poor, pierced hands on the breasts + Of dreaming Magdalenes; + + And of every orphan child, + And of houses holy with prayer, + Mary Mother has care ... + Sing, Jesus meek and mild + + Stands in your doorways' gloom, + And hears your hymn beseech ... + Let the honey of His speech + Your desolate hearts perfume!-- + + The Shepherd of straying sheep + Shall lead you home to the fold ... + But your soul, old women, must weep, + Remembering its wounds of old, + + Love, and the heart's long burn, + The wounds of hope ever sick, + And childhood's dreams falling quick, + Shed and dead turn by turn. + + Lord, on old women have pity, + Whose soul, fair fragile toy, + Touched by the kiss of the city, + Dreams of the sun of joy! + + + +ALBERT MOCKEL. + +1866--. + + + +THE GIRL. + + +Slender, and so virginal, but why not somewhat languid?--her casque of +golden hair is starred sometimes with mellow sparks, and mellow is her +mauve silk dress soft in its folds. + +She is all music, in the music of her movements bathed, they also soft +with pensive grace, and very slow with suppleness that undulatingly +unrolls. + +An evening party. She has danced, she dances still. Men dark and fair +have come and led her off, under the chandeliers in this insipid +music,--insipid, and amusing her. Much has she danced (O all this +light!) and feels a little weary, weary. Yes, several waltzes; of her +partners one could talk, or nearly could;--but he is ugly, and his fish +eyes middle-class. The other, on her programme next, is far more +handsome, surely: his keen eyes have metallic glints, his hair is +glossy black; he is Italian, is he not, or else from Hungary? + +Ah! here he comes. + +Two heads incline, she takes an arm: they waltz. + +This waltz, it rolls with a voluptuous rhythm, in harmony with the +rhythm of the Girl, like convoluted masses, musically vaporous and very +heavy, volutas without end and curve on curve. They dance, their curves +leave traces of caresses in the air, their undulations are a most +lascivious music. She? she is very tired, she has no strength as on her +cavalier she leans! her thought is vague, so vague along the twining +curves, vague in volutas without end, and with the contours of their +curves. These curves are turning round lasciviously; she thinks no more, +she turns, she turns, she undulates in air and in the music's kisses, +tickled by something drunken, by this air which brushes her, this +ball:--she shivers. + +Now nothing more, her eyes see nothing; things that turn, vague things, +volutas vague without an end, and curves that drag her on in velvet +rhythms. But all the things around her turn too vaguely, too vaguely +cycles turn barbaric, mad; all of it turning, turning; and if she look +again she will be sure to fall!... + +The waltz continues and lasciviously rolls, rolls in the dizziness of +turning things, mad cycles, and all this softness, curves that languish +fit to swoon! Feverishly and to flee the crazy dizziness of all these +vague and circumambient things, as if to save her life she keeps her +look on him.--He plunges his deep down into the great vague eyes before +him, until he sets them shuddering ... This man, his eyes are shining; +strangely beautiful, they shine with gleams fantastic, and from their +fluid comes perverted charm, burning and dominating, almost animal, and +with a glaucous glint that troubles her ... + +This well-nigh bestial look upon a somewhat pensive, handsome face.... +And it is she, she ... Ashamed, in spite of all her dizziness, she takes +away her eyes from him who seeks to conquer her. But all is turning, all +these things, these vague things turning, turning O too much! she shuts +her eyes to see them not, she could not open them again, the rhythms +bear her onward crossing one another, brushing some lascivious curve +again, the vagueness, O such vagueness of the crazy cycles and +lascivious curves that ravish her. Delicate titillation like a feather's +sudden touch electrifies her, half-fainting and surrendering she floats +like flotsam on his arm; this arm, that like a very soft and powerful +billow bears and cradles her; sweetly, irresistibly caresses her, +bearing her onward, circling her with a voluptuous embrace, and ... no, +no! his eyes through her closed lids she feels them, and their glaucous +flame that pierces, conquers her. This glaucous look, this virile and +determined look, it weighs upon her, haunting the soft eddyings of the +waltz,--and is not this a breath that brushes her, the stifled warmth of +a desiring breath, man's breath on her neck.... + +But the waltz bears her on in whirling, vague, voluptuousness. + + * * * * * + + THE SONG OF RUNNING WATER. + + + "The light that my embanking meadow laves + Over me like a purer billow glides. + Naked in its limpid and transparent waves, + It is the magnifying image wherein I + Am the diaphanous shadow of the sky. + + O beam!... O dream of fire that fills me ... + He, my heroic vow that with emotion thrills me, + Comes!... but when his flame has lapped me wholly, + From over me he rises, fleeing slowly, + And in my being I can hear a being die. + + Beautiful is the forest, whose + O'er-leaning leaves temper my languid heat, + Stripped by the wind of gold he strews, + And myriad leaves are from each other singled, + Dancing to fall upon their glancing selves, + And playfully to emulate the frivolous deceit + Of a bird's pinion with my waters mingled. + + Breezes, trills of songbirds warbling with a breast that wells, + All that lives and makes the forest ring retells + The melody I murmur to my tall reed-grasses, + Aery music that its spirit glasses. + + O forest! O sweet forest, thou invitest me to rest + And linger in thy shade with moss and shavegrass dressed, + Imprisoning me in swoon of soft caresses + That o'er me droop thy dense and leafy tresses. + + But on I glide, I go, and, fretful, + Pass under thee, gliding away my life forgetful. + The evanescent soul, the soul where thou wert glassed, + Fades, and leaves my sealed eyes nothing of the past. + + Far away from me are gone + All the glimpses that upon me shone. + To other forests and to other lights, + Shaking my hair from fall to fall, from spate to spate, + I glide with hands untied, and empty-eyed, + With endless hours that fetter and control my fate. + + Wandering shadow of a reverie banked and pent, + Sister of all those whom my waves entrap, + Intangible as a soul, and, like a soul, + Unfit to seize, I roll + Garlands of scattered memories, whose scent + Dies in a bitter sap. + + And neither who I am nor whence I am I know ... + Under my fleeting images lives but one being, + That winds with all my windings whither they are fleeing ... + O thou whose tired feet I have bathed, and heavy brow, + And the caress of avid hands,-- + O passer-by, my brother listening to me now!-- + Hast thou not seen, from the waste mountains' threshold + to my far sea-sands, + Born and reborn in me, strong as the whipped flood-tides + of love's emotion, + The broad, unbroken current rolling me to the ocean? + + Hast thou not seen, force without end, immortal rhythm and rhyme, + Desire impelling me beyond the bounds of Time?" + + + + THE GOBLET. + + + Every hand that touches me I greet + With kisses welcoming, caresses sweet. + + Thus in my crystal's naked beauty, I-- + With nothing save a little gold as on my lips a dye-- + Give myself wholly to the mouth unknown + That seeks the burning of my own. + + Queen of joy,--queen and slave,-- + Mistress that taken passes on again, + Mocking the love she throws to still + Desire, I have blown madness at my pleasure's will + To the four winds that rave. + + Say you that I am vain? + List! + I am feeble, scarcely I exist ... + Yet listen: for I can be everything. + + This mouth, that never any kiss could close, + Capriciously in subtle fires it blows, + The jewelled garlands of a shadowy blossoming. + + Tulip of gold or ruby, dense + Corolla of dark purple opulence, + Stem of a lilial diamond + Flowered upon a limpid pond + That nothing save the beak of wood-doves troubles, + I am sparkling, I am singing,--and I laugh to see, + Ascending in this colourless soul of me, + As might a dream, a thousand iridescent bubbles. + + For the lover drunken on my lips that burn, + Whether he pour in turn + The wines of gold and flame or love's wave to my rim, + Drinks from my soul for ever strange to him + A queenly splendour or the radiance of the skies, + Or fury scorching where the harmful ruby lies + In the bitter counsel of my jealous topazes. + + And, tears or joy, delirium, daring drunkenness, + From all this passion that to his is married + Nothing of me will gush unto his arid + Lips, save the simple and the limpid light + Whose gleam is wedded to my empty chalice. + + What matter? I have given Desire his cloudland palace, + And on my courtesan's bare breast + Love lets the hope of his diaphanous flight + Languish, and softly rest ... + And I laugh, the fragile, frivolous sister of Eve! + For me in nights of madness drunken hands upheave + Higher than all foreheads to the constellated skies, + And then I am the sudden star of lies, + That into troubled joys darts deep its radiant gleam-- + The sweet, perfidious happiness of Dream. + + + + THE CHANDELIER. + + + Jewels, ribbons, naked necks, + And the living bouquet that the corsage decks; + Women, undulating the soft melody + Of gestures languishing, surrendering ... + And the vain, scattered patter of swift words ... + + Silken vestures floating, faces bright, + Furtive converse, gliding glances, futile kiss + Of eyes that flitting round alight like birds, + And flee, and come again coquettishly; + Laughter, and lying ... and all flying away + To the strains that spin the frivolous swarm around. + + Lo, here the burning beauty of a rose + Has fallen ... + And feeble in its wasted grace it lies, + Exhaling its bruised loveliness, the while, + Like Love among the smiles, + It dies. + + Eddying skirts, gay giddiness ... the festival is closed. + While somewhat of uneasiness still palpitates, + No void subsists of vanished voices; + And nothing on the stained boards has remained + Except a stem, a chalice,--once a rose. + + But the forgotten chandelier, whose grandiose soul + Unto the eyes of beauty dedicates + Its glorious sheaf of fires without a goal, + In halls deserted charms the solitude + That nascent morning sheds his pure breeze o'er + + And the dawn weaves afar its threads of light. + * * * * * + Know you that in the Orient, simple, earnest, bright, + She whose burning soul immortal shows + Arises + + ... O light! + + Down yonder, in the deeper solitude, + She who is born, and dies, and is renewed. + Life passionately rises under the sky! + The fleeing wave has mirrored in its sheen + The young smile of the golden morn, + That comes across the plain where wheat and rye + Grow green, and with the blonde dawn intertwine ... + Behold: consumed under the ruby shine + In which its glory's arid flame exhausts itself, + The chandelier is paling at the breath of Death, + And burns its throes out in the face of the Sun. + + + + THE ANGEL. + + + Some one here has gone to sleep. + + While yet the sun is at the Heaven's rim, + Under the shadows of domed ilex crests, + Innocent, tired, upon the happy grass he rests, + And the shadow, scarcely moving over him, + Prolongs around his sleep the hem of night. + + Who is this child thus dawning on our sight? + Is it to any one among you known + Whence comes this adolescent, white + Traveller, who has halted with us in the night? + + Comes he from seas afar, + Where islands are? + Or from unkempt + Forests, or from sterile plains, + Whose vastness never any man has dreamt? + + Naked and white is he. The stones that clot + The road, his feet and knees have wounded not; + There is upon his brow something we dread ... + Whence comes he, with his beauty dight, + He who has halted with us in the night? + + His hair is spread + Like a wave of light; + His closed hand holds a flower unknown; + And all his white of an enchanted thing + Is like a cloud-scape doubly shown + In waters mirroring. + + O brothers, take + Care that his sleep ye do not break! + + But what a snow is this that trembling gleams + Frail on his flank, and buries him in our sight? + And these strange beams, + That like a white and scintillant raiment drape + His limbs in folds of light? + + O brothers! I have seen ... It is a wing ... + Look ye: this is, immortal shape, + An angel slumbering. + + In the light morn, where the holm its shadow flings, + The wanderer adown Heaven's azure steep + Has closed his mystic wings: + An angel here has gone to sleep! + + Never a movement quivers + To trouble the transparent, limpid air: + Not a leaf shivers ... + It is an angel sleeping there. + + What silence! O what calm without an end! + Whence did the stranger unto us descend? + Did he, a weak, frail enemy advance + Before the One who strikes, and wills us prone? + Or were there monsters to be overthrown, + Some day of courage blind, pierced with his lance, + And then his wing grazed Death? + But no, for with a smile his mouth uncloses; + And in the silence he reposes. + + O let us whisper! Let the shadow's dome + Lengthen the hour of sleep with its fresh gloam. + Perchance his soul loved space, but tender + And human still, grew weary of the bare + And arid splendour of unvaulted air, + And all this sun-swept ether limitless ... + + Sad was his heart one day, feebler his soul, + His brow too heavy; and, without a goal, + Wandering through deathless radiance loathing it, + He closed his eyes above + The dizzy vast of love, + And, keeping at his flank his shamed wings, + Down floating, on the earth alit. + + But when, awakening, to his feet he springs, + Angered, his resistless wings will soar and fly, + Resounding through the Azure they devour; + And, virgin, with a supernatural, clear cry, + He in the dawn will fade, in the infinite hour, + Like the keen dream that darts through cosmos deeps, + When a flaming meteor leaps, + And lights the worlds between. + + + + THE MAN WITH THE LYRE. + + + No man knows whence, from very far, + Came a man who bore a lyre, + And his eyes were as bright as a madman's are, + And he sang a song of fire + To the short strings of his lyre, + The love of women, and vain, languishing desire, + Upon his lyre. + + His lyre was frail, and flowered with roses pale; + And so sweet rose the voice of his breath, + That as far as a man's eye wandereth, + From the mountain to the vale, + From the valley to the forest, from the forest to the plain, + Ran the young men, and the lasses sprang + To hear the dulcet strain of pain he sang. + + "He's a proud man," said all the men. + "Like a soul speaking is this voice of his, + So sad and tender, fit to make you swoon, + His voice is like a woman's kiss!"-- + "Ho!" they said--said all the lasses then-- + "He is a lover, with his lyre! + Sweetly he speaks, so sweetly with his lyre, + We fain would weep, and would be dying soon...." + + But now the singer's voice has changed, he sings + Upon the long chords of his lyre + The deeds of men, and dukes, and kings, + Warring afar from Ophir to Cathay, + And over all the earth in great array, + And weapons shocked by which the soul is rocked,-- + And golden oriflammes spread to the breeze's breath + To celebrate the joy of life in death. + + "O!" the men, "Alas!" the lasses said, + "We understand no longer what you say. + Your voice that soared, like any wing + Freed but now from the great paradise, + Has gone,--perhaps more proudly hovering,-- + We know not in what country now it flies." + "O!" the men, "Alas!" the lasses said. + And children, string by string, + Cried under dazzled skies. + + Now for his grave man's voice the singer tries + The greatest chord of all the lyre. + And to the gravest chord of all he saith + Hope that for very youth soars in a breath, + And stretching like a wakened beast desire.... + And lo! already, by the willows of the river, + Beautiful Joy who passes binding crowns turns her aside. + + And suddenly tempestuous grief rings far and wide, + Its strength awakening from the mystery of the chords + Dream-voices that deliver.... + And lo! our fists are clenched and leaping towards + Death's iron gates, and bruised recoiling thence. + + "Holla!" the men said; and the lasses laughed. + "Holla!" the men said, "surely he is daft! + He sings, he comes we know not whence; + What would he have from us? We have no pence." + (And the lasses laughed.) + "Follow," the lasses said, "the werwolf we have + started." + And men and maids stoned him with pebbles of the way, + And, twining arms and waists, so glad and gay, + Singing and laughing, all departed, + Laughing and singing, laughing all the way. + * * * * * + But now the solitude is moulding + A long music folding and unfolding. + + Is it an unseen angel's touch? As in the grey + Silence might a phantom shape's, + That comes, unrolls its raiment, and escapes, + A voice flees, when the breeze has touched and passed, + And glides within the singing chords.... + As a light wind sings at a vessel's mast, + The sweet breath mounting from the river towards + The singer, binds a chant on the lyre's chords. + + It is a wing wrinkling the wave, and in it glassed: + It is the vague word moving Nature through and through, + And which the human lip shall never speak.... + + And now it bears a soul into the blue; + And of a sudden all the melody + Rings out with such a grave accord towards + The skies, that in the radiant deeps of space the chords, + Magnified, no man can fathom how, + Have brushed God's viewless brow! + + + + SONG OF TEARS AND LAUGHTER. + + + Two women on the hill-side stood, + Where the long road winds through the wood, + At dusk of day. + One of them laughs, a-laughing glad and gay, + One of them sings, mocking all grisly care; + The other moans, and sighs in her despair, + The other sobs, crying her heart away. + + "Ho!" (says the one) "sweet glides the breeze, + My drunken heart upon it flees...." + + The other moans, "The wind blows chill, + My heart is O! so sad and ill." + + One told her story to the grass-green hill: + + "Years and years gone my husband went from me, + (Upon the breeze my laughter bounds and blows!) + He went to sail upon the doleful sea, + And God knows he has slain his thousand foes. + But let the drunken breeze be blowing strong, + He will come back with April's sun ere long, + And we shall laugh at troubles o'er and done, + Counting the golden booty he has won." + + So glad and gay, she laughs and sings her song. + + And the other moans in sorrow broken-hearted; + The words are broken in her voice that grieves. + + "The wind groans; my soul with sorrow heaves; + My lord, my lover he is far departed! + His flesh with mine was one, + His soul and mine were blent. + And yet one day from me he went, + And on my lips held out in vain, + Like a drop hung on the rim + Of passion's cup filled full for him, + Is trembling still a kiss I gave not back again. + + Far, far away, upon the bloody plain, + (O! in the wind the wailing wild of pain!) + Perchance he fell and now he dies,--or some + Woman has with her love his heart o'ercome, + Some woman's eyes have robbed my happiness ... + With pain and love my heart is all forlorn; + I hear my sorrow and the wind's distress + Blent in the baleful bluster of the corn. + I know! Another woman's kisses sever + His heart from mine! But what is this disgrace + To me, the flesh of his flesh now and ever? + Let him come back! I languish for his face. + Let him come back to where his truelove lies, + And every day my tears for him shall race + Down on my pale hands from my withered eyes." + + "Ho!" says the one, (a-singing glad and gay), + "Thy tears are at the wind's will borne away. + See, in the valley greens the gracious spring; + The warbling bird is gladdening the leaves! + O let the breeze blow far thy voice that grieves, + For the breeze is come, with perfumes on his wing + And the meadows bloom under the April rain. + Laughter! I know no more of tears and pain." + + "Ah!" says the other, "woe and lackaday!" + + "O!" says the one,--and laughing wends her way. + + Two women on the hill-side stood. + + And now, from the far fields and near the wood, + Two wounded men come trailing up the way. + No standard waves its joy before their face, + No sturdy mule is bearing their array. + Alone, and slowly, up the path they pace, + And, drop by drop, blood marks their every trace. + + And of a sudden crying from the brant, + The blended voices of two women pant;-- + And the wind may moan, and laugh the breeze, + For grief and joy mingle their ecstasies. + + "It is my husband! God, scarce liveth he ... + (My laugh is stifled dying in the breeze!) + Alas! it is my husband, fainting, bruised, + Drop by drop his blood has oozed ... + Curst be the hour my husband went from me! + Curst, curst be God who hears and sees!" + + Two cries of women, fury and caress, + Cry without hope and cry of happiness ... + + "It is my lord, alive, my lover dear ... + (My tears are dried, and on the breeze they flee!) + O it is he indeed! My lord is here, + Bruised, wounded, pitiful, with panting breath, + But loyal to my heart that quivereth ... + Blest be the day gives my true love to me!" + + And the wind may moan, and sing the breeze ... + For joy and grief have blent their ecstasies. + + For mirrored in the evasive wave appears + A double brow; an angel sleeps beside + The waking angel; from the plaint that died + Thanksgiving soars; and, mingling smiles with tears, + Days with black jewels gem a diadem + For glittering Night whence Death comes unto them. + + + + THE ETERNAL BRIDE. + + + I have dreamt thee kind, and dreamt thy careful eyes, + Sister unknown, eternal bride of mine. + Wife of my thought, I have bent my mouth to thine, + And slowly thou hast spoken,--in this wise: + + "I flash, I glitter, I fade. + + Enjoy my love ere it flees, + But seek not where I have strayed, + My trace is like sand on the breeze. + + My kiss falls on thy face.... + But I am unseen, a shade + That passes ... my kisses fade + Like a wing that flits through space. + + Listen, and think! I am she + Who opens thine eyes in dream. + I am the wonderful beam + Of a mystery unveiled to thee. + + I am hot as the sun at heaven's steep, + And more than smoke I am light; + And I glide through the odours of night + To visit thee in thy sleep." + + + + THE BRIDE OF BRIDES. + + + O thou who hauntest my nights, Spectre of Time, immense, + Voiceless, eternal shadow, Monster for whose feet we hark, + And peer for thy marrowless bones in vain through the darkness dense, + I know thou art near me ... I tremble, and wait for thee in the dark. + + O shame! Am I stricken with terror? Absolve with the calm of thy scorn + My soul that is dizzily whirling under thy piercing eyes! + Yet once my forehead fancied, in its tender and radiant morn, + That folded into thy bosom every sorrow dies. + + I have hated thee in my terror, O Priestess of Time, O Death. + Thy fathomless anger swells and rolls a mournful sea, + And the flesh in the shock of thy billows writhes, and with stifled breath + Cries through the din of thy laughter, crying unto thee.... + + But come! ... O Bride of embraces twined like an octopus! + I give to thy greedy heart a valiant and quiet heart,-- + Since it is true that Love soars out of Death as does + A lily out of a coil of encircling serpents dart. + + + +GEORGES RAMAEKERS. + +1875--. + + + THE THISTLE. + + + Rooted on herbless peaks, where its erect + And prickly leaves, austerely cold and dumb, + Hold the slow, scaly serpent in respect, + The Gothic thistle, while the insects' hum + Sounds far off, rears above the rock it scorns + Its rigid virtue for the Heavens to see. + The towering boulders guard it. And the bee + Makes honey from the blossoms on its thorns. + + + + MUSHROOMS. + + + Whether with hues of corpses or of blood,-- + Phallus obscene or volva as of glue-- + In the rank rotting of the underwood, + And those that out of dead beasts' bodies grew, + Fed by the effervescence + Of poisonous putrescence, + Flourish the saprophytes in mould and must. + + Plants without roots and with no leaves of green, + Souls without faith or hope--they thrust + Protuberances rank with lust, + Inert, venene. + + And if there is not death in all of them, + It is because some sect among them breeds + From less putrescent wood fallen from the stem + Of the Living Tree whose severed bough still feeds. + + In the autumnal thicket, thinned + Along its mournful arches by the wind, + No longer to dead twigs but sapwood quick, + Corrupting trunks that time left whole, + The reeking parasites in millions stick, + Like to the carnal ill that gnaws the soul + Of those who at the feet of women fawn. + + And Hell has blessed their countless spawn. + + And though they cannot reach the surging tops + Of the unshaken columns of the Church, + In spreading crops + The parasites with poison smirch + And mottle with strange stains the fruits + The Monstrance ripens in the groves of Rome. + + Trusting that ancient orchard's sainted roots, + Whoever of the leprous apples eats + Shall feel his faith grow darkened with a gloam + That filters heresy's corroding sweets. + + More hideous than saprophytes, + And therefore for the sacrilege more fit, + Upon the Corn and Vinestock sit + Minute and miserable parasites; + And o'er the Eucharist their tiny bellies, + To cat and crimson it, have crept. + Their occult plague has for three hundred years + Eaten the very hope of mystic ears, + Wherever the Christian Harvester has slept. + And while, in the land of heavy, yellow beers, + In the brewing-vat of barren exegeses + Some new-found yeast for ever effervesces, + The saints whose blood turns sick and rots, + Waiting till a second Nero shall + For their cremation light a golden carnival, + Behold their bodies decked with livid spots. + + + +GEORGES RENCY. + +1875--. + + + WHAT USE IS SPEECH? + + + What use is speech, what use is it to say + Words that without an echo die away, + And only leave vain sadness after? + All a forest of shadow rings with laughter, + If thou but move thy hand to grasp at life! + + My love, the path on which we laugh with life + Pales in a doubt befogged with roads that leads not thorough; + The night is triumphing with stars, towards to-morrow! + In the night, thou sayest, shadowy terrors fall. + Be undeceived, there is no night: + There is only multiform, enormous light, + And the stars are there, for thee to be drunk withal! + + + + THE SOURCE. + + + Our feet kiss where the source is glistening + In the glad gloaming softening the trees. + Its waters murmur mysteries to the breeze, + And we in ravishment are listening. + The leaves are paling in the twilight chill: + A mystic something in the air is swimming; + Our eyes with happy tears are over-brimming; + And now the source grows timid, and is still. + The shadow makes the world so fair and frail; + Wouldst thou not, like a banner on the gale, + Be fain to shake thy heart out tenderly?-- + But no, say nothing: silence is a veil + For fervent thoughts that utterance only mars. + Let us sit hand in hand, and converse be + Without a word under the peace of stars. + + + + THE FLESH. + + + O carnal love, life's laughter! Under these + Free Eden skies and on these blossomed leas, + Thy kiss is on these budding lips of ours. + The high grass is all gold, the drunken flowers + Voluptuously languish, every one, + Feverish as the earth is with the sun. + + My heart leaps like a beast of light, and rears + And madly o'er the royal road careers, + Where my desires' processional altars are. + Your flesh is quivering and to mine replies, + Dearest, and glassed within your great pale eyes + Is Heaven immensely blue and deep and far. + + Kiss me! The hour is sweet, and pure our kiss. + The deathless boon of living sings in us. + Let us with ravishment delirious + Possess each other, and in infinite bliss + Be born again, knowing life's mysteries! + + Fold me and fill me with your hot caress, + O human goddess naked, exquisite! + I am drunken with your dazzling loveliness, + O queen of grace and beauty dowered with your + Young budding flesh so marvellously pure! + + + +FERNAND SÉVERIN. + +1867--. + + + THE CHAPLET. + + _Fiumina amem sylvasque inglorius_.--VIRGIL. + + + My forest, winter's captive, I have seen + Softly awakening under warmer breezes: + In bluer air my forest shimmering green + Wafts down the wind the scent that in its trees is. + + An olden happiness, and yet unknown: + Trembles my simple heart, these things beholding + With pearls of dew the burgeoned boughs are strown + Trembling, this morning hour, my woods unfolding, + + O Muses! if so passionate a love + Survive these leaves in songs of mine that please ye, + Seek not to soften to the wrinkles of + My brow the oak's or laurel's bough uneasy. + + The leaves were quivering open, frail as flowers! + O! let the light bough of this foliage, shining + With the cold tears of Night's imprisoned hours, + For ever be mine idle brows entwining! + + Re manlier brows by prouder fillets swathed! + But I would live renownless, lonely-hearted, + And to those virgin haunts return unscathed + Whence my child's soul hath never yet departed. + + + + THE LILY OF THE VALLEY. + + + I feel my heart for ever dying, bruised + By all the love it never will have used, + Dying in silence, and with angels by, + As simply as in cradles infants die, + Infants that have no speech. + O God-given heart, + Guarded by vigilant seraphim thou art! + No thing shall soil thy natal raiment! Thou, + Rest thee content with no kiss on thy brow, + Save of maternal summer eves, and die + In thy desire and thy virginity. + Thy sacrifice hath made thee shy and proud; + Thy life with very emptiness is bowed. + Made to be loved, loved thou shalt never be, + Though many maids would stretch their arms to thee, + As to the Prince who through their fancies rides. + Alas! and thou hast never known these brides; + To thee they come not when calm evening falls, + The pensive maids to whom thy longing calls; + And thou art dying of thy love unused, + Poor sterile heart, my heart for ever bruised! + + + + SOVRAN STATE. + + + In nights impure moans one with fever stricken: + "Lord! let a maiden bring me, for I sicken, + Water and grapes, and quench my thirst with them. + + Spring water! Fruits of a virgin vine! And let + Her fresh and virgin hands lie on the fret + Of my King's brow burnt by its diadem." + + O pitiful crown upon a head so lowly! + Does the unquiet night allegiance show thee? + Thou King of beautiful lands that never were. + + "O stars among the trees! O waters pale! + Comes the expected dawn in opal veil? + Pity the tired and lonely sufferer: + + And grant me, Lord, after the night out-drawn, + The sleep and boon of Thy forgiving dawn; + And let Thy chosen heart no longer bleed!" + + But answer makes the Lord in stern denial: + "Leave thou, for nobler verse, to pain and trial + Thy heart, the open book the angels read." + + + + THE KISS OF SOULS. + + + You who have died to me, you think you live! + Living, your squandered gems and lilies shed! + But since the dream you were is fugitive, + Love, calm and sad, whispers that you are dead. + + She that you were survives in dreams: I press + Her virgin hands, I hear the vows she swears. + Hath not this evening that old loveliness? + I seem to breathe the blossoms that she wears. + + Hearts had been beating long before they spoke, + But eyes had speech, and tender voices ringing, + Docile to love like perfect lyres, awoke + The forest's wondering echo with their singing. + + A lovelier and a lonelier evening came; + The sun behind the breathless forest set. + Who was it hushed our voices? For in shame + We bent our eyes down that by chance had met. + + The treasure of our hearts this one deep look + Delivered up! Our secrets were in this + One look exchanged that our two spirits took, + And wedded in their first and only kiss. + + + + HER SWEET VOICE. + + + Her sweet voice was a music in mine ear; + And in the perfume of the atmosphere + Which, in that eve, her shadowy presence shed, + "Sister of mystery," trembling I said, + "Too like an angel to be what you seem, + Go not away too soon, beloved dream!" + + Then, smiling as a mother will, she seized + My brow, and with soft hands my fever eased. + + "Still, thou poor child, this childish fear of me? + Thy forehead furrowed by sad memory, + Are these a shadow's hands that on it rest? + A bright May morn is dawning in thy breast: + Is it a phantom's voice that soothes thy grief? + But if my beauty be beyond belief, + Breathe its terrestrial odour! Part my hair, + And take my veil away and make me bare! + Thou canst not soil my wings, nor stain the snow + Of these frail flowers that in my garden blow; + Come, in so fair an evening, spend the treasure + Of my veiled loveliness in thy heart's pleasure." + + Thus sang the tender voice that needs must fade! + And in her kiss the soul was of a maid. + But night came from the rim of autumn skies, + Came from the forest's shallow, evil eyes. + + + + THE REFUGE. + + + This is mine hour. Night falls upon my life. + I must forego my part in men's keen strife. + With conquered step resigned I reach the door, + Beloved too late, where none awaits me more. + An autumn shudder through the clear, cold sky + Runs, interrupting the monotonous cry + Shed by a horn astray and desolate, + Making me, languidly, smile at my fate.... + + But all is said. Naught moves me, in the gloam, + Save the uneasy hope of this dear home. + She lives; my heart, and not mine eye, foresees. + The sweetness of the moon, spread on the trees, + Veils more and more this happy nook with peace + And mystery that bids foreboding cease; + + A counsel of forgetfulness is cast + Around me, something pensive, good, and vast. + And every step I take the more it thrills + My soul which yet that ancient quarrel fills. + But what shall summer storms betoken, when + She breathes the autumn calm she longed for then, + And only trembles feeling memories stir + Of hearts that loved her well and wounded her. + + + + NATURE. + + + Slow falls the eve; the hour is grave, profound. + The sweet, sad cuckoo makes the air resound + With his two notes with springtide languor filled; + And the tall pines, by eddying breezes thrilled, + Tremble, as ocean echoes in a shell. + Else all is hushed. + I walk with heart unwell. + Slowly the shadow on my path descends. + I loiter o'er familiar forest bends, + Whose calm grows deeper with the darkening west, + O such a calm I feel my own unrest + Melt in the peace of landscapes unforeseen; + And in the east eve clothes with azure sheen + The slender uplands with their billowing chain, + Whose silhouettes shut in the distant plain; + And on their tops their cloak of forests gleams + Through the thin veil of mist that o'er them streams. + And all is vague, the ideal form of things + Shimmers divine in deep imaginings, + Gladdening the eye with grace ineffable; + Seeing them, in the enchanted world we dwell + Of soulless, happy beings who possess + The calm we cry for of forgetfulness, + We who desire in desolate hearts that pine, + This sovereign gift of peace that makes divine; + And most at eve, when quiet nights of spring + Enchant the sky, the forest, and the ling. + The forest's darkness sways me at its will; + And with a holy and unfathomed thrill + I feel a dizzy longing grow in me: + O not to think! nor wish! O not to be!... + + + + THE HUMBLE HOPE. + + + Time goes, poor soul, and sterile are thy vows. + After our outwatched nights and feverish brows, + What do we know, save that we nothing know? + + Even as a child a butterfly will chase, + Far have I strayed in many a flowering place, + And here I tremble in the afterglow. + + Yet not despairing in my feebleness, + But hoping that the Master still will bless + The will to do good that my efforts show. + + + + ELEONORA D'ESTE. + + + Does thy heart, Tasso, burn for thy Princess? + Strive to refine this obscure tenderness, + Of which she can accept the flower alone. + Save it make nobler, I no love can own. + Certes, among the gifts that fate bestows, + And the least lovely, as a poet knows, + + Some are an offered prey that passions take. + But there are others which, if seized, do break; + And of these supreme gifts love is the best. + If thou indeed dost love me, 'ware thee lest + Thy heart forget the reverence it owes, + Then may it love, and in love find repose. + + + + THE THINKER. + + + O thinker! Thou whose heart hath not withstood, + For the first time, Spring's beauty in the wood, + And who thyself wilt therefore not forgive, + + Thy days have passed in pondering o'er the great + Enigma man proposes to his fate, + And books from life have made thee fugitive. + + What boots? Leave to the gods their secret yet, + And, while thou livest, taste without regret + The sweetness of this simple word: To live. + + + + A SAGE. + + + He knows dreams never kept their promise yet. + Henceforth without desire, without regret, + He cons the page of sober tenderness + In which some poet, skilled in life's distress, + Breathed into olden, golden verse his sighs. + Sometimes he lifts his head, and feeds his eyes, + With all the wonderment that wise men know, + On fields, and clouds that over forests go, + And with their calmness sated is his thought. + + He knows how dearly fair renown is bought: + He too, in earlier days of stinging strength, + Sought that vain victory to find at length + Sadness at his desire's precipitous brink.... + Of what avail, he thought, to act and think, + When human joy holds all in one rapt look? + His mind at peace reads Nature like a book. + He smiles, remembering his youth's unrest, + And, though none know it, he is wholly blest. + + + + THEY WHO ARE WORN WITH LOVE. + + + When, worn with unregenerate delights, + The kisses of fair youths grow dull and sicken, + They seek, fatigued with hope and outwatched nights, + A bed of love that shall the senses quicken. + + White bed of love with pillows rich with lace, + Caressing curtains sheltering dreamless blisses, + And, to grow better from the bought embrace, + Upon their wasted brows long trembling kisses. + + Calmer than autumn heavens the eyes they crave, + In which the bitterness of theirs shall vanish, + Lips of a speech impassionate, suave, + Which their sick sorrows shall assuage and banish. + + Love should be night, and hushed forgetfulness, + Never with follies of the past upbraided, + Hope still renewed consoling the distress + Of dreams come true and in fulfilment faded. + + Nor light, nor noise; but in the happy room, + With tapestry the walls to sleep beguiling, + To kiss the long hands of the mistress whom + A plain gown clothes, and who is faintly smiling! + + Once they have seen her, and to hear her speak + They hoped for her and Heaven, and knelt before her; + But love's old burden makes their soul so weak + That save with sighs they never dare implore her. + + + + THE CENTAUR. + + + Oft on my rural youth I dwell in fancy. + Ye gods who for our deepest feelings care, + If fields and forests evermore entrance me, + It is because you set my birthplace there. + + With what a love up-welling sweet and tender + Upon the august face of earth mine eyes + Lingered, and drank her solitary splendour, + Bathed in the radiance of calm summer skies! + + All was excitement! Valleys richly rounded; + The undulating, broadly breasted hills; + The vast plains which the veiled horizon bounded, + Lit by the silver flash of restless rills. + + But you, ye forests, filled me most with craving! + The pang I felt still to my memory cleaves, + When I beheld your endless tree-tops waving, + As underneath the wind the ocean heaves! + + And at your wafted murmuring, I, to capture + Your reachless vast, my arms would open dart, + Crying in sudden, overpowering rapture: + "The world is less immense than my own heart!..." + + Do not accuse of pride, O Nature! Mother! + My fleeting youth. Not vain was my unrest: + Of all thy mortal sons there is no other + Hath strained himself more fondly to thy breast. + + The summer sun has scorched my skin, and daring + Has chiselled on my face its stubborn force; + In foaming floods I bathed, my body baring; + And on the mountains braved the tempests hoarse. + + All manly pleasures that our being fashion + In the rough shock of elements uncouth, + All of them I have known with headlong passion; + With lust of struggle pulsed my arduous youth. + + Intoxicating was the zest that thrilled me. + What matter if I let the fervour seize + My quivering soul? The bitter joy that filled me + Whipped and exalted me, and left no lees. + + For I had dreamt all phases of existence! + All that was frail and pent in me with scorn + I cast aside, and looked towards the distance + Where dawned the fate for which my mind was born. + + Was it a vain dream? O you centaurs smiting + With roving hoofs your rocks and herbless sods, + O you whose shape, a man's and beast's uniting, + Shelters a secret fire that makes you gods! + + You who quaffed life with its abundance drunken! + Your transports I have known in olden days, + In evenings when, like you in silence sunken, + I drove along the darkened forest ways! + + In me, ye savage gods, your strength was seething; + And, when a sacred madness through me ran, + In the pent breath the foliage was breathing + I deemed me one of you, I mortal man. + + + +ÉMILE VERHAEREN. + +1855--. + + + THE OLD MASTERS. + + + In smoky inns whose loft is reached by ladders, + And with a grimy ceiling splashed by shocks + Of hanging hams, black-puddings, onions, bladders, + Rosaries of stuffed game, capons, geese, and cocks + Around a groaning table sit the gluttons + Before the bleeding viands stuck with forks, + Already loosening their waistcoat buttons, + With wet mouths when from flagons leap the cork + Teniers, and Brackenburgh, and Brauwer, shaken + With listening to Jan Steen's uproarious wit, + Holding their bellies dithering with bacon, + Wiping their chins, watching the hissing spit. + Their heavy-bodied Hebes, with their curving + Bosoms in linen white without a stain, + Are going round, and in long jets are serving + Wine that a sunbeam filters through the pane, + Before it sets on fire the kettles' paunches + The Queens of Tippling are these women, whom + Their swearing lovers, greedy of their haunches, + Belabour as befits their youth in bloom, + With sweating temples, blazing eyes, and lolling + Tongue that keeps singing songs obscenely gay, + With brandished fists, bodies together rolling, + Blows fit to bruise their carcases, while they, + With mouth for songs aye ready, throat for bumpers, + And blood for ever level with their skins, + Dance fit to split the floor, they are such jumpers, + And butt their dancer as around he spins, + And lick his face in kisses endless seeming, + Then fall with ransacked corsage, wet with heat. + A smell of bacon fat is richly steaming + From the huge platters charged with juicy meat; + The roasts are passed around, in gravy swimming, + Under the noses of the guests, and passed + Around again, with fresh relays of trimming. + And in the kitchen drudges wash up fast + The platters to be sent back to the table; + The dressers bulge, crowded with crockery; + The cellars hold as much as they are able; + And round the estrade where this agape + In glowing red, from pegs hang baskets, ladles, + Strainers, and saucepans, candlesticks, and flasks. + Two monkeys in a corner show their navels, + Throning, with glass in hand, on two twin casks; + A mellow light on every angle glimmers, + Shines on the door-knob, through the great keyhole, + Clings to a pestle, filters through the skimmers, + Is jewelled on the monster gala bowl, + And slanting on the heated hearthstone sickens, + Where, o'er the embers, turns to brown the flesh + Of rosy sucking-pigs and fat cock-chickens, + That whet the edge of appetite afresh. + From dawn to eve, from eve to dawn, and after, + The masters with their women revel hold-- + Women who play a farce of opulent laughter: + Farce cynical, obscene, with sleeves uprolled, + In corsage ript a flowering gorge not hiding, + Belly that shakes with jollity, bright eyes. + Noises of orgy and of rut are gliding, + Rumbling, and hissing, till they end in cries; + A noise of jammed iron and of vessels banging; + Brauwer and Steen tilt baskets on their crowns; + Brackenburgh is two lids together clanging; + Others with pokers fiddle gridirons, clowns + Are all of them, eager to show their mettle; + They dance round those who lie with feet in air; + They scrape the frying-pan, they scrape the kettle; + And the eldest are the steadiest gluttons there, + Keenest in kisses, and the last to tumble; + With greasy nose they lick the casseroles; + One of them makes a rusty fiddle grumble, + Whose bow exhausts itself in cabrioles; + Some are in corners vomiting, and others + Are snoring with their arms hung round their seats + Babies are bawling for their sweating mothers + To stuff their little mouths with monster teats. + Men, women, children, all stuffed full to bursting; + Appetites ravening, and instincts rife, + Furies of stomach, and of throats athirsting, + Debauchery, explosion of rich life, + In which these master gluttons, never sated, + Too genuine for insipidities, + Pitching their easels lustily, created + Between two drinking-bouts a masterpiece. + + + + THE COWHERD. + + + In neckerchief and slackened apron goes + The girl to graze the cows at dawn's first peep; + Under the willow shade herself she throws + To finish out her sleep. + + Soon as she sinks she snores; around her brow + And naked toes the seeded grasses rise; + Her bulging arms are folded anyhow, + And round them buzz the flies. + + The insects that all heated places love + Come flitting o'er the grass to bask in swarms + Upon the mossy patch she lies above, + And by her sprawling warms. + + Sometimes her arm, with awkward empty sweep, + Startles around her limbs the gratified + Murmur of bees; but, greedy still of sleep, + She turns to the other side. + + The heavy, fleshy flowers the cattle browse + Frame in the sleeping woman as she dreams; + She has the heavy slowness of her cows, + Her eye with their peace gleams. + + Strength, that the trunk of oaks with knots embosses, + Shines, as the sap does, in her; and her hair + Is browner than barley in the fields that tosses, + Or the sand in the pathways there. + + Her hands are raw, and red, and chapped; the blood + That through her tanned limbs rolls its waves of heat, + Lashes her throat, and lifts her breasts, as would + The wind lift bending wheat. + + Noon with a kiss of gold her rest surprises, + Low willow branches o'er her shoulders lean, + And blend, while heavier slumber in her eyes is, + With her brown hair their green. + + + + THE ART OF THE FLEMINGS. + + + I. + + Art of the Flemings, thou didst know them, thou, + Who well didst love them, wenches big of bone, + With ruddy teats, and bodies like flowers blown; + Thy proudest masterpieces tell us how. + + Whether a goddess glimmers from thy painting, + Or nymphs with dripping hair a shepherd sees + Rising among the lonely irides, + Or sailors to the sirens' kisses fainting, + + Or females with full contours symbolizing + The seasons beautiful, O glorious Art, + These are the Masteries love-born in thy heart, + The wenches of thy colours' gormandizing. + + And to create their bodies' carnal splendour, + Naked, and fat, and unashamed, thy brush + Under their clear and glossy skin made blush + A fire of unimagined colours tender. + + They were a focussed light that flashed and glinted; + Their eyes were kindled at the stars, and on + Thy canvases their bosoms rose and shone, + Like great bouquets of flesh all rosy-tinted. + + Sweating with love they rolled about a clearing + 'Mid in the wood, or bathed their feet in springs, + While in the thickets full of noise of wings, + Satyrs were prowling and through branches leering, + + And hid their legs, salacious, shagged, distorted; + Their eyes, like sparks holing the darkness, lit + Some leafy corner, their long mouths were slit + With greasy smiles, their lustful nostrils snorted, + + Till, dogs in rut, they leapt to their bitches; these + Feign flight, and shiver coldly, blushing roses, + Pushing the satyr off the part that closes, + Squeezing their thighs together under his knees. + + And some, by madness more than his ignited, + Rounding their naked haunches, and rich flesh + Of glorious croups beneath a showering mesh + Of golden hair, to wild assaults invited. + + + II. + + You with the life with which yourselves abounded + Conceived them, masters dear to fame, with red + Brutalities of blood upon them shed, + The bodies of your beauties richly rounded. + + No pallid women sunk in listless poses + Morosely on your canvases are seen, + As the moon's face shimmers in waters green, + Mirroring their phthisis and chlorosis, + + With foreheads sad as is the day's declining, + Sad as a dolorous music faints and dies, + With heavy-lidded, sick and glassy eyes, + In which consumption and despair are pining, + + And false, affected grace of bodies faded + Upon the sofas where their time they pass, + In scented dressing-gowns of taffetas, + And in chemises with a dear lace braided. + + Nothing your brushes knew of painted faces, + Nor of indecency, nor of the nice + Hints of a cunning and perverted vice + Which with its winking eye our art debases, + + Nor of the pedlar Venuses whose draping + Of curtains of the cushioned chamber hints, + Nor corners of a venal flesh that glints + In nests out of the low-necked dress escaping, + + Pricking, suggestive themes you knew not, faintings + Of shepherdesses in false pastorals, + No, nor voluptuous beds in hollow walls-- + The pulsing women, masters, of your paintings, + + In landscapes bright, or waited on by pages + Crimsonly clad in panelled halls with gold, + Or in the purple sumptuousness unrolled + Of the god-guarded, mellow classic ages, + + Your women sweated health; they were serenely + Crimson with blood, and white with corpulence; + Ruts they did hold in leashed obedience, + And led them at their heels with gesture queenly. + + + + PEASANTS. + + + Not Greuze's ploughmen made insipid in + The melting colours of his pastorals, + So neatly dressed, so rosy, that one laughs + To see the sugared idyll chastening + The pastels of a Louis Quinze salon, + But dirty, gross, and bestial--as they are. + + Penned round some market town in villages, + They know not them who traffic in the next, + But hold them enemies to cheat and rogue. + Their fatherland? Not one believes in it, + Except that it makes soldiers of their sons, + To steal their labour for a span of years. + What is the fatherland to yokels? They + See only, in a corner of their brains, + Vaguely, the king, magnificent man of gold, + In the braided velvet of his purple robes, + A sceptre, and gemmed crowns escutcheoning + The panelled walls of gilded palaces, + Guarded by sentinels with tasselled swords. + This do they know of power. It is enough. + And for the rest their heavy feet would march + In clogs through duty, liberty, and law. + In everything by instinct ankylosed, + A dirty almanac is all they read; + And though they hear the distant cities roaring, + So terrified are they by revolutions, + That they are riveted to serfdom's chains, + Fearing, if they should rear, the iron heel. + + Along the black roads hollowed out with ruts, + Dung-heaps in front and cinder-heaps behind, + Stretch with low roofs and naked walls their huts + Under the buffeting wind and lashing rain. + These are their farms. And yonder soars the church, + Stained, to the north, with ooze of verdigris, + And farther, squared with ditches, lie their fields, + Fertile in patches, thanks to fat manure, + And to the harrow's unrelenting teeth. + There they keep tilling with their obstinate hands + The black glebe mined by moles, and rotten with + Detritus, pregnant with the autumn's sperm. + With dripping brow they drive the spade in deep, + Doubled above the furrows they must sow, + Under the hail of March that whips their back. + And in the summer, when the ripe rye rocks + With golden glints under the pouring sun, + Here, in the fire of long and torrid days, + Their restless sickle shaves the vast wheat-field, + While from their wrinkled foreheads runs the sweat, + Opening their skin from shoulders down to hips; + Noon darts its brazier rays upon their heads; + So raw the heat is that in meslin fields + The too dry ears burst open, and the beasts, + Their necks with gadflies riddled, pant in the sun. + And let November slow to die arrive, + Rolling his hectic rattle through deaf woods, + Howling his sobs and ending not his moans, + Until his death-knell sounds--still runs their sweat. + Always anew preparing future crops, + Under a sky spouting from swollen clouds, + While the north wind tears big holes in the woods, + And sweeps the broken stubble from the fields, + So that their bodies soon in ruin fall: + Let them be young and comely, broadly built, + Winter that chills, summer that calcines them, + Makes their limbs loathsome and their lungs short-breathed; + Or old, and bearing the down-weighing years, + With blear eyes, broken backs, and useless arms, + And horror stamped upon their hedgehog face, + They stagger under the ruin-loving wind. + And when Death opens unto them its doors; + Their coffin sliding into the soft earth + Seems only to contain a thing twice dead. + + + II. + + On evenings when through eddying skies the wind + Is whirling the swarming snow across the fields, + Grey-headed farmers sit in reckonings lost, + Near lamps from which a thread of smoke ascends. + The kitchen is unkempt and slatternly: + A string of dirty children by the stove + Gorge the spilt remnants of the evening meal; + Mangy and bony cats lick dishes clean; + Cocks make their beaks ring upon pewter plates; + Damp soaks the leprous walls; and on the hearth + Four flickering logs are twisting meagre shanks + Dying with listless tongues of pale red ray; + The old men's heads are full of bitter thoughts. + "For all the seasons unremitting toil, + With all hands at the plough a hundred years, + The farm has passed from father on to son, + And, with good years and bad, remains the same, + Jogging along upon the brink of ruin." + This is what gnaws and bites them with slow tooth. + So like an ulcer hate is in their hearts, + Patient and cunning hate with smiling face. + Their frank and loud good nature hatches rage; + Wickedness glimmers in their icy looks; + They stink of the rancorous gall that, age by age, + Their sufferings have collected in their souls. + Keen are they on the slightest gain, and mean; + Since they can not enrich themselves by work, + Stinginess makes their hearts hard, their hearts fetid; + And black their mind is, set on petty things, + And stupid and confounded before great; + As they had never raised their eyes unto + The sun, and seen magnificent sunsets + Spread on the evening, like a crimson lake. + + + III. + + But kermesse is for them a festival, + Even for the dirtiest, the stingiest, + There go the lads to keep the wenches warm. + A huge meal, greased with bacon and hot sauces, + Makes their throats salty and enflames their thirst. + They roll in the inns, with rounded guts, and hearts + Aflame, and break the jaws and necks of those + Come from the neighbouring town, who try, by God! + To lick the village girls too greedily, + And gorge a plate of beef that is not theirs. + + Savings are squandered--for the girls must dance, + And every chap must treat his mate, until + The bottles strew the floor in ugly heaps. + The proudest of their strength drain huge beer-mugs, + Their faces fire-plated, darting fright, + Horrid with bloodshot eyes and clammy mouth, + In the dark rumbling revels kindle suns. + The orgy grows. A stinking urine foams + In a white froth along the causey chinks. + Like slaughtered beasts are reeling topers floored. + Some are with short steps steadying their gait; + While others solo bawl a song's refrain, + Hindered by hiccoughing and vomiting. + + In brawling groups they ramble through the town, + Calling the wenches, catching hold of them, + Hugging them, shoving at them, + Letting them go, and pulling them back in rut, + Throwing them down with flying skirts and legs. + In the taverns--where the smoke curls like grey fog + And climbs to the ceiling, where the gluing sweat + Of heated, unwashed bodies, and their smells + Dull window-panes and pewter-pots with steam-- + To see battalions of couples crowd + In growing numbers round the painted tables, + It looks as if their crush would smash the walls. + More furiously still they go on swilling, + Stamping and blustering and raging through + The cries of the heavy piston and shrill flute. + Yokels in blue smocks, old hags in white bonnets, + And livid urchins smoking pipes picked up, + All of them jostle, jump, and grunt like pigs. + And sometimes sudden wedges of new-comers + Crush in a corner the quadrille that looks, + So unrestrained it is, like a mixed fight. + Then try they who can bawl the loudest, who + Can push the tidal wave back to the wall, + Though with a knife's thrust he should stab his man. + But the band now redoubles its loud din, + Covers the quarrelling voices of the lads, + And mingles all in leaping lunacy. + They calm down, joke, touch glasses, drunk as lords. + The women in their turn get hot and drunk, + Lust's carnal acid in their blood corrodes, + And in these billowing bodies, surging backs, + Freed instinct grows to such a heat of rut, + That to see lads and lasses wriggling and writhing, + With jostling bodies, screams, and blows of fists, + Crushing embraces, biting kisses, to see them + Rolling dead drunk into the corners, wallowing + Upon the floor, knocking themselves against + The panels, sweating, and frothing at the lips, + Their two hands, their ten fingers ransacking + And emptying torn corsages, it seems-- + Lust is being lit at the black fire of rape. + Before the sun burns with red flames, before + The white mists fall in swaths, the reeking inns + Turn the unsteady revellers out of doors. + The kermesse in exhaustion ends, the crowd + Wend their way homewards to their sleeping farms, + Screaming their oaths of parting as they go. + The aged farmers too, with hanging arms, + Their faces daubed with dregs of wine and beer, + Stagger with zigzag feet towards their farms + Islanded in the billowing seas of wheat. + + + + FOGS. + + + You melancholy fogs of winter roll + Your pestilential sorrow o'er my soul, + And swathe my heart with your long winding-sheet, + And drench the livid leaves beneath my feet, + While far away upon the heaven's bounds, + Under the sleeping plain's wet wadding, sounds + A tired, lamenting angelus that dies + With faint, frail echoes in the empty skies, + So lonely, poor, and timid that a rook, + Hid in a hollow archstone's dripping nook, + Hearing it sob, awakens and replies, + Sickening the woeful hush with ghastly cries, + Then suddenly grows silent, in the dread + That in the belfry tower the bell is dead. + + + + ON THE COAST. + + + A blustering wind the scattered vapour crowds + And shakes the horizon, where the dawn bursts, by + A charge that fills the ashen azure sky + With rearing, galloping, mad, milky clouds. + + The whole, clear day, day without mist or rain, + With leaping manes, gilt flanks, and fiery croups, + In a flight of pallid silver and foam, their troops + Career across the ether's azure plain. + + And still their ardour grows, until the eve's + Black gesture cuts the vast of space, and heaves + Their masses towards the squall that landward blares, + + While the ample sun of June, fallen from Heaven's vault, + Writhes, bleeding, in their vehement assault, + Like a red stallion in a rut of mares. + + + + HOMAGE. + + + I. + + To heap in them your heavinesses fair, + By double, frugal, savoury breasts embossed, + The rosy skin by which your arms are glossed, + Your belly's curly fleece of reddish hair, + + My verses I will weave as, at their doors + Seated, old basket-makers curb and twine + White and brown osiers in a clear design, + Copying enamelled tesselated floors, + + Until your body's gold within them teems; + And like a garland I will wear them, spun + In massive blonde heaps on my head, in the sun, + Haughtily proud, as a strong man beseems. + + + II. + + Your rich flesh minds me of the centauresses, + Whose arms Paul Rubens rounded in his dyes + Of fire beneath a weight of sun-washed tresses, + Pointing their breasts to lion-cubs' green eyes. + + Your blood was theirs, when in the mazy gloaming, + Under some star that bit the brazen sky, + They heard a stranger in the sea-fog roaming, + And hailed some Hercules astray and shy; + + And when with quivering senses hot for kisses, + And belly for the unknown gaping, their + Arms they were twisting, calling to mad blisses + Huge, swarthy eaters of rut on a body bare. + + + + CANTICLES. + + + I. + + Like lissom lizards drinking the sun's fires + Of gold, with great wide eyes and bronze-nailed feet, + Crawl towards your body my long, green desires. + + In the full torrid noon of summer heat + I have bedded you in a nook at a field's edge, + Where the tanned meslin shoots a shivering wedge. + + Heat is suspended o'er us like a daïs; + The sky prolongs the vast expanse, gold-plated; + Afar the Scheldt a dwindling, silver way is; + + Lascivious, huge, you lie there yet unsated; + Like lissom lizards drinking the sun's fires + Of gold, crawl back to you my spent desires. + + + II. + + My love shall be the gorgeous sun that robes + With torrid summer and with idlenesses + Your body's naked slopes and hilly globes, + + Showering its light upon you in caresses, + And this new brazier's contact shall be in + Tongues of an ambient gold that lick your skin. + + The tragic, rolling red of dawn and eve, + And the day's beauty you shall be; with hues + Of splendour you a billowy robe shall weave; + + Your flesh shall be like fabulous statues, + Which in the desert sang, and shone like roses, + When morning burned their blocks with apotheoses. + + + III. + + I would not choose the sunflowers that unclose + In daylight; nor the lily long of stem; + Nor roses loving winds to fondle them; + No, nor great nenuphars whose pulp morose, + + And wide, cold eyes, charged with eternity, + Upon their imaging pond yawn idle-lipped + Their stirless dreams; nor flowers despotic, whipped + By wrath and wind along a hostile sea, + + To symbolize you. No, but shivering wet + Under the dawn, with great red calyx leaves + Mingling as jets of blood are fused in sheaves, + A group of garden dahlias closely set, + + Which, in voluptuous days of autumn, bright + With matter's hot maturity and heats, + Like monstrous and vermilion women's teats, + Grow stiff beneath the golden hands of light. + + + + DYING MEN. + + + Sharp with their ills, and lonely in their dying, + The sceptic sick watch by their chamber fire, + With haggard eyes, the evening magnifying + The house-fronts, and the blackening church-spire. + + The hour is dead where in some never-crowded + City by time extinguished, desolate, + They live immured in walls by mourning shrouded, + And hear the monumental hinges grate. + + Haggard and lone, they gaze at Death unbeaten, + Like grim old wolves, the hieratic sick; + Life and its days identic they have eaten, + Their hate, their fate, diseases clustering thick. + + But shaken in their cynical assurance, + And in their haughtiness and pale disgust, + They ask: "Is happiness not in endurance + Of wilful suffering, suffering loved with lust?" + + Of old they felt their hearts go out to others; + Benevolent, they pitied alien griefs; + And, like apostles, loved their suffering brothers, + And feared their pride, cabined in dead beliefs. + + But now they think that love is more cemented + By cruelty than kindness, which is vain. + What of the few, chance tears they have prevented? + How many more have flowed? Decreed is pain. + + Empty the golden islands are, where lingers + In golden mist Dream in a mantle spun + Of purple, skimming foam with idle fingers + From silent gold rained by a teeming sun. + + Broken the proud masts, and the waves are churning! + Steer to extinguished ports the vessel's prow: + No lighthouse stretches its immensely burning + Arm to the great stars--dead the fires are now. + + Haggard and lone, they gaze at Death unbeaten, + Like grim old wolves, the hieratic sick; + Life and its days identic they have eaten, + Their hate, their fate, diseases clustering thick. + + With nails of wood they beat hot foreheads. Cages + Of bones for fevers are their bodies. Blind + Their eyes, their lips like withered parchment pages. + A bitter sand beneath their teeth they grind. + + Now in their extinct souls a longing blazes + To sail, and in a new world live again, + Whose sunset like a smoking tripod raises + The God of shade and ebony in its brain; + + In a far land of tempests raging madly, + In lands of fury hoarse and livid dreams, + Where man can drown, ferociously and gladly, + His soul and all his heart in fiery streams. + + They are the tragic sick sharp with diseases; + Haggard and lone they watch the town fires fade; + And pale façades are waiting till it pleases + Their crumbling bodies have their coffins made. + + + + THE ARMS OF EVENING. + + + While the cold night stories its terrace, gored + And dying evening throws upon the heath, + And forest fringed with marshes underneath, + The gold of his armour and the flash of his sword, + + Which wave to wave go floating on, too soon + Yet to have lost day's flaunting ardent glow, + But kissed already by the shadowed, slow + Lips of the pious, silver-handed moon, + + The lonely moon remembering the day, + Whose brandished weapons made a golden glare, + A pale wraith in the paleness of the air, + The moon for ever pale and far away! + + + + THE MILL. + + + Deep in the evening slowly turns the mill + Against a sky with melancholy pale; + It turns and turns, its muddy-coloured sail + Is infinitely heavy, tired, and ill. + + Its arms, complaining arms, in the dawn's pink + Rose, rose and fell; and in this o'ercast eve, + And deadened nature's silence, still they heave + Themselves aloft, and weary till they sink. + + Winter's sick day lies on the fields to sleep; + The clouds are tired of sombre journeyings; + And past the wood that gathered shadow flings + The ruts towards a dead horizon creep. + + Around a pale pond huts of beechwood built + Despondently squat near the rusty reeds; + A lamp of brass hung from the ceiling bleeds + Upon the wall and windows blots of gilt. + + And in the vast plain, with their ragged eyes + Of windows patched, the suffering hovels watch + The worn-out mill the bleak horizon notch,-- + The tired mill turning, turning till it dies. + + + + IN PIOUS MOOD.[1] + + + The winter lifts its chalice of pure night to heaven. + + And I uplift my heart, my night-worn heart in turn, + O Lord, my heart! to thy pale, infinite Inane, + And yet I know that nought the implenishable urn + May plenish, that nought is, whereof this heart dies fain; + And I know thee a lie, and with my lips make prayer + And with my knees; I know thy great, shut hands averse, + Thy great eyes closed, to all the clamours of despair; + It is I, who dream myself into the universe; + Have pity on my wandering wits' entire discord; + Needs must I weep my woe towards thy silence, Lord! + + The winter lifts its chalice of pure night to heaven. + --OSMAN EDWARDS. + + + [1] _The Savoy_, No. 4, August 1896. + + + + THE FERRYMAN. + + + With hands on oars the ferryman + Strove where the stubborn current ran, + With a green reed between his teeth. + + But she who hailed him from the bank, + Beyond the waves, among the rushes rank + That rim the rolling heath, + Into the mists receded more and more. + + The windows, with their eyes, + And the dials of the towers upon the shore, + Watched him, with doubled back, + Straining and toiling at the oar, + + And heard his muscles crack. + Of a sudden broke an oar, + Which the current bore + On heavy waves down to the sea. + + And she who hailed him from the mist, + In the blustering wind, appeared + More madly still her arms to twist, + Towards him who never neared. + + The ferryman took to the oar remaining + With such a might, + That all his body cracked with straining, + And his heart shook with feverish fright. + + A sudden shock, the rudder tore, + And the current bore + This remnant to the sea. + + The windows on the shore, + Like eyes with fever great, + And the dials of the towers, those widows straight + That in their thousands throng + A river bank, were obstinately staring + At this mad fellow obstinately daring + His crazy voyage to prolong. + + And she who hailed him there with chattering teeth, + Howled and howled in the mists of night, + With head stretched out in frantic fright + To the unknown, the vast, and rolling heath. + + The ferryman, as a statue stands, + Bronze in the storm that paled his blood, + With the one oar firm in his hands, + Beat the waves, and bit the flood. + His old hallucinated eyes + See the lit distances rejoice, + Whence reaches him the lamentable voice, + Under the freezing skies. + + His last oar breaks, + His last oar the current takes, + Like a straw, down to the sea. + + The ferryman exhausted sank + Upon his bench, with sweat that poured, + His loins with vain exertion sore, + A high wave struck on the lee-board, + He looked, behind him lay the bank: + He had not left the shore. + + The windows and the dials gazed, + With eyes they opened wide, amazed, + Where all his strength to ruin ran; + But the old, stubborn ferryman + Kept all the same, for God knows when, + The green reed in his teeth, even then. + + + + THE RAIN. + + + As reeled from an exhaustless bobbin, the long rain, + Interminably through the long gray day, + Lines the green window pane + With its long threads of gray, + The reeled, exhaustless rain, + The long rain, + The rain. + + It has been ravelling out, since last sunset, + Rags hanging soft and low + From sulky skies of jet. + Unravelling, patient, slow, + Upon the roads, since last sunset, + On roads and streets, + Continual sheets. + + Along the leagues that wind + Through quiet suburbs to the fields behind, + Along the roads interminably bending, + In funeral procession, drenched, resigned, + Toiling, bathed in sweat and steam, + Vehicles with tilted coverings are wending; + In ruts so regular, + And parallel so far + By night to join the firmament they seem, + The water drips hour after hour, + The spouts gush, and the trees shower, + With long rain wet, + With rain tenacious yet. + + Rivers o'er rotten dikes are brimming + Upon the meadows where drowned hay is swimming; + The wind is whipping walnut trees and alders, + And big black oxen wading stand + Deep in the water of the polders, + And bellow at the writhen sky; + And evening is at hand, + Bringing its shadows to enfold the plain, and lie + Clustered at the washed tree's root; + And ever falls the rain, + The long rain, + As fine and dense as soot. + + The long rain, + The long rain falls afresh; + And its identic thread + Weaves mesh by mesh + A raiment making naked shred by shred + The cottages and farmyards gray + Of hamlets crumbling fast away; + A bunch of linen rags that hang down sick + Upon a loosely planted stick; + Here a blue dovecote to the roof that cleaves; + Sinister window panes + Plastered with paper rank with mildew stains; + Dwellings whose regular eves + Form crosses on their gable ends of stone; + Uniform, melancholy mills, + Standing like horns upon their hills; + Chapels, and spires with ivy overgrown; + The rain + The long rain + Winter-long beneath them burrows. + + The rain, in lines, + The long, gray rain untwines + Its watery tresses o'er its furrows, + The long rain + Of countries old, + Torpid, eternally unrolled. + + + + THE FISHERMEN. + + + Up from the sea a flaky, dank, + Thickening fog rolls up, and chokes + Windows and closed doors, and smokes + Upon the slippery river bank. + + Drowned gleams of gas-lamps shake and fall + Where rolls the river's carrion; + The moon looks like a corpse, and on + The heaven's rim its burial. + + But flickering lanterns now and then + Light up and magnify the backs, + Bent obstinately in their smacks, + Of the old river fishermen, + Who all the time, from last sunset, + For what night's fishing none can know, + Have cast their black and greedy net, + Where silent, evil waters flow. + + Deep down beyond the reach of eye + Fates of Evil gathering throng, + Which lure the fishers where they lie + To fish for them with patience strong, + True to their task of simple toiling + In contradictory fogs embroiling. + + And o'er them peal the minutes stark, + With heavy hammers peal their knells, + The minutes sound from belfry bells, + The minutes hard of autumn dark, + The minutes list. + + And the black fishers in their ships, + In their cold ships, are clad in shreds; + Down their cold nape their old hat drips + And drop by drop in water sheds + All the mist. + + Their villages are numb and freeze; + Their huts are all in ruin sunk, + And the willows and the walnut-trees + The winds of the west have whipped and shrunk; + And not a bark comes through the dark, + And never a cry through the void midnight, + That floated, humid ashes blight. + + And never helping one another, + Never brother hailing brother, + Never doing what they ought, + For himself each fisher's thought: + And the first draws his net, and seizes + All the fry of his poverty; + And the next drags up, as keen as he, + The empty bottoms of diseases; + Another opens out his net + To griefs that on the surface swim; + And another to his vessel's rim + Pulls up the flotsam of regret. + + The river churns, league after league, + Along the dikes, and runs away, + As it has done so many a day, + To the far horizon of fatigue; + Upon its banks skins of black clay + By night perspire a poison draught; + The fogs are fleeces far to waft, + And to men's houses journey they. + + Never a lantern streaks the dark, + And nothing stirs in the fisher's bark, + Save, nimbusing with halos of blood, + The thick white felt of the clustering fogs, + Silent Death, who with madness clogs + The brains of the fishermen on the flood. + + Lonely at the fog's cold heart, + Each sees not each, though side by side; + Their arms are tired, their vessels ride + By sandbanks marked on ruin's chart. + + Why in the dark do they not hail each other? + Why does a brother's voice console not brother? + + No, numb and haggard they remain, + With vaulted back and heavy brain, + With, by their side, their little light + Rigid in the river's night. + Like blocks of shadow there they arc, + And never pierce their eyes afar + Beyond the acrid, spongy wet; + And they suspect not that above, + Luring them with a magnet's love, + Stars immense are shining yet. + + These fishers in black torment tossed, + They are the men immensely lost + Among the knells and far aways + And far beyonds where none can gaze; + And in their souls' monotonous deeps + The humid autumn midnight weeps. + + + + SILENCE. + + + Since last the summer broke above her + A flash of lightning from his thunder-sheath, + Silence has never left her cover + In the heather on the heath. + + Across her refuge peers the steeple, + And with its fingers shakes its bells; + Around her prowl the vehicles, + Laden with uproarious people; + Around her, where the fir-trees end, + In its rut the cart-wheel grates; + But never a noise has strength to rend + The tense, dead space where silence waits. + + Since the last loud thunder weather, + Silence has stirred not in the heather; + And the heath, wherein the evenings sink, + Beyond the endless thickets, and + The purple mounds of hidden sand, + Lengthens her haunts to heaven's brink. + + And even winds stir not the slim + Larches at the marsh's rim, + Where she will glass her abstract eyes + In pools where wondering lilies rise; + And only brushes her the clouds' + Shadow when they rush in crowds, + Or else the shadow of a flight + Of hovering hawks at heavens' height. + + Since the last flash of lightning streaked the plain, + Nothing has bitten, in her vast domain. + + And those who in her realm did roam, + Whether it were in dawn or gloam, + They all have felt their hearts held fast + In spells of mystery she has cast. + She, like an ample, final force, + Keeps on the same unbroken course; + + Black walls of pinewoods gloom and bar + The paths of hope that gleam afar; + Clusters of dreamy junipers + Frighten the feet of wanderers; + Malignant mazes intertwine + With paths of cunning curve and line, + And the sun every moment shifts + The goal to which confusion drifts. + + Since the lightning that the storm forged bit, + The bitter silence at the corners four + Of the heath, has changed no whit. + + The shepherds with their hundred years worn out, + And the spent dogs that follow them about, + See her, on golden dunes where shadows flit, + Or in the noiseless moorland, sometimes sit, + Immense, beneath the outspread wing of Night; + Then waters on the wrinkled pond take fright; + And the heather veils itself and palely glistens, + And every leaf in every thicket listens, + And the incendiary sunset stills + The last cry of his light that o'er her thrills. + + And the hamlets neighbouring her, beneath + Their thatch of hovels on the heath, + Shiver with terror, feeling her + Dominant, though she do not stir; + Mournful, and tired, and helpless they + Stand in her presence as at bay, + And watch benumbed, and nigh to swoon, + Fearing, when mists shall lift, to see, + Suddenly opening under the moon, + The silver eyes of her mystery. + + + + THE ROPE-MAKER. + + + At the dike's foot that wearily + Curves along the sinuous sea, + The visionary, silver-haired + Rope-maker with arms bared, + Pulling backwards as he stands, + Rolls together, with prudent hands, + The twisting play of endless twine, + Coming from the far sky-line. + + Down yonder in the sunset sheen, + In the twilight tired and chill, + A busy wheel is whizzing still, + Moved by one who is not seen; + But, parallel on stakes that space + The road from equal place to place, + The yellow hemp that the roper draws + Runs in a chain that never flaws. + + With skilful fingers thin and old, + Fearing to break the glint of gold + That with his work the gliding light + Blends by the houses growing dim, + The visionary roper weaves + Out of the heart of the eddying eves, + And draws the horizons unto him. + + Horizons? Those of red sunsets: + Furies, hatred, fights, regrets, + Sobs of beings broken-hearted, + Horizons of the days departed, + Writhen, golden, overcast; + Horizons of the living past. + + Of old--the life of strayed somnambulists, + When the right hand of God to Canaans blue + The road of gold through gloaming deserts drew, + Through morns and evenings swayed with shifting mists. + + Of old--exasperated life careering + Hanging from stallions' manes, lighting the dense + Darkness with heels that flashed out gleams immense, + Towards immensity immensely rearing. + + Of old--it was a life of burning leaven; + When the Red Cross of Hell and Heaven's White + Through miles of marshalled mail that shed the light + Marched each through blood towards its victory's heaven. + + Of old--it was a foaming, livid life, + Living and dead, with tocsin bells and crime, + Edicts and massacres reddening the time, + With mad and splendid death above the strife. + + Between the flax and osiers, + On the road where nothing stirs, + Along the houses growing dim, + The visionary roper weaves + Out of the heart of the eddying eves, + And draws the horizon unto him. + + Horizons? There they linger yet: + Toil, and science, struggle, fret. + Horizons? There at even-chime, + They in their mirrors show the mourning + Image of the present time. + + Now, a mass of fires that belch defiance, + Where wise men, leagued in mighty storm and stress, + Hurl the gods down to change the nothingness + Whereunto strives the force of human science. + + Now, lo! a room that ruthless thought has swept, + Weighed and exactly measured, and men swear + The firmament is arched by empty air; + And Death is in glass bottles corked and kept. + + Now, lo! a glowing furnace, and resistance + Of matter molten in fire's dragon dens; + New strengths are forged, far mightier than men's, + To swallow up the night, and time, and distance. + + Here, lo! a palace tiredly built, and lying + Beneath a century's weight, bowed down and yellow, + And whence, in terror, mighty voices bellow, + Invoking thunder towards adventure flying. + + + Upon the regular road, with eyes + Fixed where the silent sunset dies, + And leaves the houses drear and dim, + The visionary roper weaves + Out of the heart of the eddying eves, + And draws the horizons unto him. + + Horizons? Where yon sunset beams: + Combats, hopes, awakenings, gleams; + The horizons he can see defined + In the future of his mind, + Far beyond the shores that swim + Sketched in the sky of sunsets dim. + + Up yonder--in the calm skies hangs a red + Staircase of double gold with steps of blue, + With Dream and Science mounting it, the two + Who separately climb to one stair-head. + + The lightning clash of contraries expires; + Doubt's mournful fist its fingers opes, while wed + Essential laws that had been wont to shed + In horal doctrines their fragmentary fires. + + Up yonder--mind more strong and subtle darts + Its violence past death and what is seen. + And universal love sheds a serene + And mighty silence over tranquil hearts. + + The God in every human heart, above, + Unfolds, expands, and his own being sees + In those who sometimes fell upon their knees + To worship sacred grief and humble love. + + Up yonder--living peace is burning bright, + And shedding on these lands, down evening's slope + A bliss that kindles, like the brands of hope, + In the air's ash the great stars of the night. + + + At the dike's foot that wearily + Curves along the sinuous sea + Towards the distant eddying spaces, + The visionary roper paces + Along the houses growing dim, + And drinks the horizons into him. + + + + SAINT GEORGE. + + + By a broad flash the fog was split, + And Saint George, with gold and jewels lit, + Came down the slope of it, + With feathers foaming from his crest, + Riding a charger with a milky breast, + And in its mouth no bit. + + With diamonds decked the two + Made of their fall a path of pity to + This earth of ours from Heaven's blue. + + Heroes with helpful virtues dowered, + Sonorous with courage, heroes crystalline, + O through my heart now let the radiance shine + That from his aureolar sword is showered! + O let me hear the silver prattle + Of the wind around his coat of mail, + And around his spurs in battle; + Saint George, who shall prevail, + He who has heard the cries of my distress, + And comes to save from scaith + My poor arms stretched unto his great prowess! + + Like a loud cry of faith, + He holds his lance at rest, + Saint George; + He passes, I behold + A victory as of a haggard gold, + I see his forehead with the Chrism blessed: + Saint George of duty, + Bright with his heart's and his own beauty. + + Sound, all ye voices of my hope! + Sound in myself, and on the sun-swept slope, + And high roads, and the shaded avenue! + And, gleams of silver between stones, be you + Joy, and you pebbles white with waters ope + Your eyes, and look + Up through the brook + Whose ripples o'er you roll, + And, landscape with thy crimson lakes, be thou + The mirror of the flights of flame that now + Saint George takes to my soul! + + Against the black dragon's teeth, + Against the pustules of a leprous skin + He is the glaive and the miraculous sheath. + Charity on his cuirass burns, and in + His courage is the bounding overthrow + Of instinct swart with sin. + + Fire golden-sifted, fire that wheels, + And eddying stars in which his glory lies, + Flashed from his charger's galloping heels, + Dazzle my memory's eyes. + + The beautiful ambassador is he + From the white country that with marble glows, + Where in the parks, on the sea's strand, and on the tree + Of goodness, kindness gently grows. + + The port, he knows it, where the vessels ride, + With angels filled, upon a rippling tide; + And the long evenings lighting islands fair + But motionless upon their waters, where, + And in eyes also, firmaments are seen. + + This kingdom hath the Virgin for its Queen, + And St. George is the humble joy of her palace, + In the air his falchion glimmers like a chalice; + Saint George with his devouring light, + Who like a fire of gold dispels my spirit's night. + + He knows how far my feet have wandered, + He knows the strength that I have squandered, + And with what fogs my brain has fought, + He knows what keen assassin knives + Have cut black crosses in my thought, + He knows my scorn of rich men's lives, + He knows the mask of wrath and folly + Upon the dregs of my melancholy. + + I was a coward in my flight + Out of the world in my sick, vain defiance; + I have lifted, under the roofs of night, + The golden marbles of a hostile science + To the barred summits of black oracles; + But the King of the Night is Death; + And man but in the dawning's breath + His enigmatic effort spells; + When flowers unclose, prayer too uncloses, + With the scent of prayer their lips are sweet, + And the white sun on a nacreous water-sheet + Is a kiss that on man's lips reposes; + Dawn is a counsel to be bold, + And he who hearkens is tenfold + Saved from the marsh that never yet cleansed sin. + + Saint George in cuirass glittering + With leaps of fire sprung + Unto my soul through the fresh morning; + He was beautiful with faith and young; + + And more to me he bent + As he beheld me penitent; + As from an intimate golden phial + He filled me with his soaring; + Though he was proud unto my sight, + I laid the sweet flowers of my trial + In his pale hand of blest restoring; + Then signed he, ere he did depart, + My brow with his lance's cross of gold, + Bade me be of good cheer and bold, + And soared, and bore to God my heart. + + + + IN THE NORTH. + + + Two ancient mariners from the Northern Main + One autumn eve came sailing home again, + From Sicily and its deceitful islands, + Carrying a shoal of sirens + On board. + + Sharpened with pride they sail into their bay; + Among the mists that mark the homeward way + They cut their passage like a sword; + Under a mournful and monotonous gale, + One autumn evening of a sadness pale, + Into their northern fjord they sail. + + From the safe shore the burghers of the haven + Gaze listless, cold, and craven: + And on the masts, and in the ropes, behold + The sirens covered with gold + Biting, like vines, + Their bodies' sinuous lines. + + The burghers gaze with closed and sullen mouth, + Nor see the ocean booty of the south, + Brought in the fog's despite; + The vessel seems a basket silver-white, + Laden with flesh and fruit and gold for home, + Advancing borne on wings of foam. + + The sirens sing, and in the cordage they + With arms stretched out in lyres, + And lifted breasts like fires, + Sing and sing a lay + Before the rolling eve, + Which reaps upon the sea the lights of day; + The sirens sing, and cleave + Around the masts as curves the handle of the urn + And still the citizens, uncouth and taciturn, + Hear not the song. + + They do not know their friends away so long-- + The ancient mariners twain--nor understand + The vessel is of their own land, + Neither the foc-jibs of their own + Making, nor the sails themselves have sewn; + Of this deep dream they fathom naught, + Which makes the sea glad with its journeyings, + Since it was not the lie of all the things + That in their village to their youth were taught. + And the ship passes by the harbour mole, + Luring them to the wonder of its soul, + But none will gather them the fruits + Of flesh and gold that load the trellised shoots. + + + + THE TOWN. + + + Every road goes to the town. + + Under the mist that the sun illumes, + She, where her terraces arise + And taper to the terraced skies, + Herself as from a dream exhumes. + + Yonder glimmer looking down, + Bridges trimmed with iron lace, + Leaps in air and caught in space; + Blocks and columns like the head + Of a Gorgon gashed and red; + O'er the suburbs chimneys tower; + Gables open like a flower, + Under stagnant roofs that frown. + + This is the many-tentacled town, + This is the flaming octopus, + The ossuary of all of us. + At the country's end she waits, + Feeling towards the old estates. + + Meteoric gas-lamps line + Docks where tufted masts entwine; + Still they burn in noontides cold, + Monster eggs of viscous gold; + Never seems the sun to shine: + Mouth as it is of radiance, shut + By reeking smoke and driving smut. + + A river of pitch and naphtha rolls + By wooden bridges, mortared moles; + And the raw whistles of the ships + Howl with fright in the fog that grips: + With a red signal light they peer + Towards the sea to which they steer. + + Quays with clashing buffers groan; + Carts grate o'er the cobble-stone; + Cranes are cubes of shadow raising, + And slipping them in cellars blazing; + Bridges opening lift a vast + Gibbet till the ships have passed; + Letters of brass inscribe the world, + On roofs, and walls, and shop-fronts curled, + Face to face in battle massed. + + Wheels file and file, the drosky plies, + Trains are rolling, effort flies; + And like a prow becalmed, the glare + Of gilded stations here and there; + And, from their platforms, ramified + Rails beneath the city glide, + In tunnels and in craters, whence + They storm in network flashing thin + Out into hubbub, dust, and din. + + This is the many-tentacled town. + + The street, with eddies tied like ropes + Around its squares, runs out and gropes + Along the city up and down, + And runs back far enlaced, and lined + With crowds inextricably twined, + Whose mad feet beat the flags beneath, + Whose eyes are filled with hate, whose teeth + Snatch at the time they cannot catch. + + Dawn, eve, and night, lost in the press, + They welter in their weariness, + And cast to chance the bitter seed + Of labour that no gain can breed. + And dens black with inanity + Where poisoned sits the clerk and fasts; + And banks wide open to the blasts + Of the winds of their insanity. + + Outside, in wadding of the damp, + Red lights in streaks, like burning rags, + Straggle from reeking lamp to lamp. + And alcohol goads life that lags. + The bar upon the causey masses + Its tabernacle of looking-glasses, + Reflecting drunken louts and hags. + To and fro a young girl passes, + And sells lights to the lolling men; + Debauch buys famine in her den; + And carnal lust ignited sallies + To dance to death in rotten alleys. + + Lust roars and leaps from breast to breast, + Whipped to a rage uproarious, + To a blind crush of limbs in quest + Of the pleasure of gold and phosphorus; + And in and out wan women fare, + With sexual symbols in their hair. + The atmosphere of reeking dun + At times recedes towards the sun, + As though a loud cry called to Peace + To bid the deafening noises cease; + But all the city puffs and blows + With such a violent snort and flush, + That the dying seek in vain the hush + Of silence that eyes need to close. + + Such is the day--and when the eves + With ebony hammers carve the skies, + Over the plain the city heaves + Its shimmer of colossal lies; + Her haunting, gilt desires arise; + Her radiance to the stars is cast; + She gathers her gas in golden sheaves; + Her rails are highways flying fast + To the mirage of happiness + That strength and fortune seem to bless; + Like a great army swell her walls; + And all the smoke she still sends down + Reaches the fields in radiant calls. + + This is the many-tentacled town, + This is the burning octopus, + The ossuary of all of us, + The carcase with solemn candles lit. + + And all the long ubiquitous + Roads and pathways reach to it. + + + + THE MUSIC-HALL. + + + Under the enormous fog + Whose wings the city arteries clog, + 'Mid ringing plaudits, at the back + Of a radiant hall their Orients they unpack. + + The acrobat on airy trestles poises; + Great suns of strass shine o'er the scene; + Clashing their fists stand cymbal-players, lean + Breakers of cries and noises; + + And when the ballet-corps with painted faces + In a thicket of perplexing steps appear, + Tangling and disentangling labyrinthine paces, + The hall, hung with its gorgeous chandelier, + That o'er a surging sea of faces glares, + The hall with heavy velvet clad, + With balconies like pad on pad, + Is like a belly that a woman bares. + + Swarming battalions of flesh and thighs + March under arches flowered with thousand dyes; + Lace, petticoats, throats, legs, and hips: + Teams of rut whose breasts, though bridled, yet + Are bounding, yoke by yoke the coiled dance trips, + Blue with paint and raw with sweat. + + Hands, vainly opening, seem to seize + Only invisible desire that flees; + A dancer, darting legs her tights leave bare, + Stiffens obscenity in the air; + Another with swimming eyes and flanks that writhe + Shrinks like a trampled beast above the loud + Flare of the footlights swaying with the lithe + Lust of the gloating crowd. + + O blasphemy vociferously hurled + In crying gold on the Beauty of the world! + Atrocious feint of Art, while Art sublime + Is lying massacred and sunk in slime! + O noisy pleasure singing as it treads + On tortured ugliness that twists and cries; + Pleasure against Joy's grain that nurtures heads + With alcohol, with alcohol men's eyes; + O pleasure whose rank mouth calls out for flowers, + And vomits the vile ferment it devours! + + Pleasure of old, heroic, calm, and bare, + Walked with calm hands and forehead clear as air; + The wind and the sun danced in his heart, he pressed + Divine, harmonious life, to his warm breast; + His breast that breathed it in was Beauty's source; + He knew no law that dared call Beauty coarse; + Sunrise and sunset, springs with mosses grassed, + And the green bough that brushed him as he passed, + Thrilled to his deep soul through his flesh, and were + The kiss of things that love makes lovelier. + + Now senile and debauched, he licks and eats + Sin that beguiles him with her poisoned teats; + Now in his garden of anomalies + Bibles, codes, texts, and rules he multiplies, + And ravishes the faith he then denies. + His loves are gold. His hatreds? Flights unto + Beauty that grows still lovelier, still more true, + Opening in starry flowers in heavens blue. + Look where he haunts these halls of monstrous art, + Whose burning windows to the heavens dart + A restlessness by gazing still renewed: + Here is the beast transformed to a multitude. + + Filled with contagion thousand eyes deflect + To find a million more they may infect; + One mind to thousands casts its brazier fire, + To be consumed the more in sick desire, + To breed new vices, unimagined Hell. + The conscience changes, and the brain as well; + Another race is bred from putrid spawn, + A writhen black totality, a sum + Of ciphers spreading in a weltering scum, + That outrages the healthfulness of Dawn. + + O shames and crimes of crowds that reek and stain + The city like a bellowing hurricane; + Gulfed in the plaster boxes tier on tier + Of theatres and halls obscene and blear! + + The stage is like a fan unfurled. + Enamelled minarets grotesquely curled. + Houses and terraces and avenues. + Under the limelight's changing hues, + First in slow rhythms, then with violent sweep, + Gathering swift kisses, touching breasts that leap, + Meet the Bayadères with swaying hips; + Negro boys, whose heads with plumes are tipped, + With their foam-coloured teeth in lips + Like a red vulva open ripped, + Move all as pushed along in sluggish poses. + A drum beats, an obstinate horn cries long, + A raw fife tickles a stupid song, + And at the last, for the final apotheosis, + A mad assault over the boards is sweeping, + Gold and throats and thighs in stages heaping + In curled entanglements; and then all closes + With garments splitting offering rounded shapes + And vice half hid in flowers like tempting grapes. + + And the orchestra dies, or suddenly halts, + And climbs, and swells, and rolls in whipped assaults; + Out of the violins wriggle spasms dark; + Lascivious dogs in the tempest seem to bark + Of heavy brasses and of strong bassoons; + A manifold desire swells, sickens, swoons, + Revives, and with such heavy violence heaves, + The sense cries out, and helpless reels, + And prostitutes itself to a spasm that relieves. + + And midnight peals. + The dense crowd pours and at the doors unfurls. + The hall is closed--and on the black causeways, + Gaudy beneath the gaslamps' leering gaze, + Red in the fog like flesh, await the girls. + + + + THE BUTCHER'S STALL. + + + Hard by the docks, soon as the shadows fold + The dizzy mansion-fronts that soar aloft, + When eyes of lamps are burning soft, + The shy, dark quarter lights again its old + Allurement of red vice and gold. + + Women, blocks of heaped, blown meat, + Stand on low thresholds down the narrow street, + Calling to every man that passes; + Behind them, at the end of corridors, + Shine fires, a curtain stirs + And gives a glimpse of masses + Of mad and naked flesh in looking-glasses. + Hard by the docks. + The street upon the left is ended by + A tangle of high masts and shrouds that blocks + A sheet of sky; + Upon the right a net of grovelling alleys + Falls from the town--and here the black crowd rallies + To reel to rotten revelry. + + It is the flabby, fulsome butcher's stall of luxury, + Time out of mind erected on the frontiers + Of the city and the sea. + + Far-sailing melancholy mariners + Who, wet with spray, through grey mists peer, + Cradled among the rigging cabin-boys, and they who steer + Hallucinated by the blue eyes of the vast sea-spaces, + All dream of it, evoke it when the evening falls; + Their raw desire to madness galls; + The wind's soft kisses hover on their faces; + The wave awakens rolling images of soft embraces; + And their two arms implore, + Stretched in a frantic cry towards the shore. + + And they of offices and shops, the city tribes, + Merchants precise, keen reckoners, haggard scribes, + Who sell their brains for hire, and tame their brows, + When the keys of desks are hanging on the wall, + Feel the same galling rut at even-fall, + And run like hunted dogs to the carouse. + Out of the depths of dusk come their dark flocks, + And in their hearts debauch so rudely shocks + Their ingrained greed and old accustomed care, + That they are racked and ruined by despair. + + It is the flabby, fulsome butcher's stall of luxury, + Time out of mind erected on the frontiers + Of the city and the sea. + + Come from what far sea-isles or pestilent parts? + Come from what feverish or methodic marts? + Their eyes are filled with bitter, cunning hate, + They fight their instincts that they cannot sate; + Around red females who befool them, they + Herd frenzied till the dawn of sober day. + The panelling is fiery with lewd art; + Out of the wall nitescent knick-knacks dart; + Fat Bacchuses and leaping satyrs in + Wan mirrors freeze an unremitting grin; + Flowers sicken on the gaming-tables where + The warming bowls twist fire of light blue hair; + A pot of paint curds on an étagère; + A cat is catching flies on cushioned seats; + A drunkard lolls asleep on yielding plush, + And women come, and o'er him bending, brush + His closed, red lids with their enormous teats. + + And women with spent loins and sleeping croups + Are piled on sofas and arm-chairs in groups, + With sodden flesh grown vague, and black and blue + With the first trampling of the evening's crew. + One of them slides a gold coin in her stocking; + Another yawns, and some their knees are rocking; + Others by bacchanalia worn out, + Feeling old age, and, sniffing them, Death's snout, + Stare with wide-open eyes, torches extinct, + And smooth their legs with hands together linked. + + It is the flabby, fulsome butcher's stall of luxury, + Time out of mind erected on the frontiers + Of the city and the sea. + + According to the jingle of the purses + The women mingle promises with curses; + A tranquil cynicism, a tired pleasure + Is meted duly to the money's measure. + + The kiss grows weary, and the game grows tame. + Often when fist with fist together clashes, + In the wind of oaths and insults still the same, + Some gaiety out of the blasphemy flashes, + + But soon sinks, and you hear, + In the silence dank and drear, + A halting steeple near + Sounding, sick with pity, + In the darkness over the city. + + Yet in those months by festivals sanctified, + St. Peter in summer, in winter Christmastide, + The ancient quarter of dirt and light + Soars up to sin and pounces on its joys, + Fermenting with wild songs and boisterous noise + Window by window, flight by flight, + With vice the house-fronts glow + Down from the garret to the grids below. + Everywhere rage roars, and couples heats. + In the great hall to which the sailors throng, + Pushing some jester of the streets, + Convulsed in obscene mimicry, along, + The wines of foam and gold leap from their sheath; + Women fall underneath + Mad, brawling drunkards; loosened ruts + Flame, arms unite, and body body butts; + Nothing is seen but instincts slaked and lit afresh, + Breasts offered, bellies taken, and the fire + Of haggard eyes in sheaves of brandished flesh. + + The frenzy climbs, and sinks to rise still higher, + Rolls like exasperated tides, + And backwards glides, + Until the moment when dawn fills the port, + And Death, tired of the sport, + Back to ships and homesteads sweeps and harries + The limp debauch and human weed + That on the pavement tarries. + + It is the flabby, fulsome butcher's stall of luxury, + Wherein Crime plants his knives that bleed, + Where lightning madness stains + Foreheads with rotting pains, + Time out of mind erected on the frontiers that feed + The city and the sea. + + + + A CORNER OF THE QUAY. + + + When the wind sulks, and the dune dries, + The old salts with uneasy eyes + Hour after hour peer at the skies. + + All are silent; their hands turning, + A brown juice from their lips they wipe; + Never a sound save, in their pipe, + The dry tobacco burning. + + That storm the almanac announces, + Where is it? They are puzzled. + The sea has smoothed her flounces. + Winter is muzzled. + + The cute ones shake their pate, + And cross their arms, and puff. + But mate by mate they wait, + And think the squall is late, + But coming sure enough. + + With fingers slow, sedate + Their finished pipe they fill; + Pursuing, every salt, + Without a minute's halt, + The same idea still. + + A boat sails up the bay, + As tranquil as the day; + Its keel a long net trails, + Covered with glittering scales. + + Out come the men: What ho? + When will the tempest come? + With pipe in mouth, still dumb, + With bare foot on _sabot,_ + The salts wait in a row. + + Here they lounge about, + Where all year long the stout + Fishers' dames + Sell, from their wooden frames, + Herrings and anchovies, + And by each stall a stove is, + To warm them with its flames. + + Here they spit together, + Spying out the weather. + Here they yawn and doze; + Backs bent with many a squall, + Rubbing it in rows, + Grease the wall. + + And though the almanac + Is wrong about the squall, + The old salts lean their back + Against the wall, + And wait in rows together, + Watching the sea and the weather. + + + + MY HEART IS AS IT CLIMBED A STEEP. + + + My heart is as it climbed a steep, + To reach your kindness fathomlessly deep, + And there I pray to you with swimming eyes. + + I came so late to where you arc, + You with your pity more than prodigal's surmise; + I came from very far + Unto the two hands you were holding out, + Calmly, to me who stumbled on in doubt! + I had in me so much tenacious rust, + That gnawed with its rapacious teeth + My confidence in myself; + + I was so tired, I was so spent, + I was so old with my mistrust, + I was so tired, I was so spent + With all the roads of my discontent. + + So little I deserved the joy how deep + Of seeing your feet light up my wilderness, + That I am trembling still with it, and nigh to weep, + And lowly for ever is the heart you bless. + + + + WHEN I WAS AS A MAN THAT HOPELESS PINES. + + + When I was as a man that hopeless pines, + And pitfalls all my hours were, + You were the light that welcomed home the wanderer, + The light that from the frosted window shines + On snow at dead of night. + + Your spirit's hospitable light + Touched my heart, and hurt it not, + Like a cool hand on one with fever hot! + A element word of green, reviving hope + Ran down the piled wrack of my heart's waste slope; + Then came stout confidence and right good will, + Frankness, and tenderness, and at the last, + With hand in hand held fast, + An evening of clear understanding and of storms grown still. + + Since, though the summer followed winter's chill, + Both in ourselves and under skies whose deathless fires + With gold all pathways of our thoughts adorn, + Though love has grown immense, a great flower born + Of proud desires, + A flower that, without cease, to grow still more, + In our hearts begins as e'er before, + I still look at the little light + Which first shone out on me in my soul's night. + + + + LEST ANYTHING ESCAPE FROM OUR EMBRACE. + + + Lest anything escape from our embrace, + Which is as sacred as a Temple's holy place, + And so that the bright love pierce with light the body's mesh, + Together we descend into the garden of your flesh. + + Your breasts are there like offerings made, + You hold your hands out, mine to greet, + And nothing can be worth the simple meat + Of whisperings in the shade. + + The shadow of white boughs caresses + Your throat and face, and to the ground + The blossoms of your tresses + Fall unbound. + + All of blue silver is the sky, + The night is a silent bed of ease, + The gentle night of the moon, whose breeze + Kisses the lilies tall and shy. + + + + I BRING TO YOU AS OFFERING TO-NIGHT. + + + I bring to you as offering to-night + My body boisterous with the wind's delight; + In floods of sunlight I have bathed my skin; + My feet are clean as the grass they waded in; + Soft are my fingers as the flowers they held; + My eyes are brightened by the tears that welled + Within them, when they looked upon the earth + Strong without end and rich with festive mirth; + Space in its living arms has snatched me up, + And whirled me drunk as from the mad wine-cup; + And I have walked I know not where, with pent + Cries that would free my heart's wild wonderment; + I bring to you the life of meadow-lands; + Sweet marjoram and thyme have kissed my hands; + Breathe them upon my body, all the fresh + Air and its light and scents are in my flesh. + + + + IN THE COTTAGE WHERE OUR PEACEFUL LOVE REPOSES. + + + In the cottage where our peaceful love reposes, + With its dear old furniture in shady nooks, + Where never a prying witness on us looks, + Save through the casement panes the climbing roses, + + So sweet the days are, after olden trial, + So sweet with silence is the summer time, + I often stay the hour upon the chime + In the clock of oak-wood with the golden dial. + + And then the day, the night is so much ours, + That the hush of happiness around us starts + To hear the beating of our clinging hearts, + When on your face my kisses fall in showers. + + + + THIS IS THE GOOD HOUR WHEN THE LAMP IS LIT. + + + This is the good hour when the lamp is lit. + All is calm, and consoling, and dear, + And the silence is such that you could hear + A feather falling in it. + + This is the good hour when to my chair my love will flit, + As breezes blow, + As smoke will rise, + Gentle, slow. + She says nothing at first--and I am listening; + I hear all her soul, I surprise + Its gushing and glistening, + And I kiss her eyes. + + This is the good hour when the lamp is lit. + When hearts will say + How they have loved each other through the day. + + And one says such simple things: + The fruit one from the garden brings; + The flower that one has seen + Opening in mosses green; + + And the heart will of a sudden thrill and glow, + Remembering some faded word of love + Found in a drawer beneath a cast-off glove + In a letter of a year ago. + + + + THE SOVRAN RHYTHM. + + + Yet, after years and years, to Eve there came + Impatience in her soul, and as a blight + Of being the sapless, loveless flower of white + And torrid happiness that cleaved the same; + And once, when in the skies the tempest moved + Fain had she risen and its lightning proved. + Then did a sweet, broad shudder glide on her; + And, in her deepest flesh to feel it, Eve + Pressed her frail hands against her bosom's heave. + The angel, when he felt the sleeper stir + With violent abrupt awakening, + And scattered air and arms, and body rocked, + Questioned the night, but Eve remained unlocked, + And silent. He in vain bespoke each thing + That lived beside her by the naked sources, + Birds, flowers, and mirrors of cold water-courses + With which, perchance, her unknown thought arose + Up from the ground; and one night when he bowed, + And with his reverent fingers sought to close + Her eyes, she leapt out of his great wing's shroud. + O fertile folly in its sudden flare + Beyond the too pure angel's baffled care! + For while he stretched his arms out she was drifting + Already far, and passionately lifting + To braziers of the stars her body bare. + + And all the heart of Adam, seeing her so, + Trembled. + She willed to love, he willed to know. + + Awkward and shy he neared her, daring not + To startle eyes that lost in reveries swam; + From terebinths were fluttered scents, and from + The soil's fermenting mounted odours hot. + + He tarried, as if waiting for her hests; + But she snatched up his hands, and o'er them hung, + And kissed them slowly, long, with kiss that clung, + And guided them to cool erected breasts. + + But through her flesh they burned and burned. His mouth + Had found the fires to set on flame his drouth, + And his lithe fingers spread her streaming tresses + O'er the long ardour of their first caresses. + + Stretched by the cool of fountains both were lying, + Seen of their passion-gleaming eyes alone. + And Adam felt a sudden thought unknown + Well in his heart to her fast heart replying. + + Eve's body hid profound retreats as sweet + As moss that by the noon's cool breeze is brushed; + Gladly came sheaves undone to be their seat, + Gladly the grass was by their loving crushed. + + And when the spasm leapt from them at last, + And held them bruised in arms strained stiff and tight, + All the great amorous and feline night + Tempered its breeze as over them it passed. + + But on their vision burst + A cloud far off at first, + And whirling its dizziness with such a blast + That it was all a miracle and a fright, + Leapt from the dim horizon through the night. + Adam raised Eve, and pressed unto him fast + Her shivering body exquisitely wan. + Livid and sulphurous the cloud came on, + With thundering threats o'erflowing, and red lit. + Suddenly on the spot + Where the wild grass was hot + With their two bodies that had loved on it, + All the loud + Rage of the dark, tremendous cloud + Bit. + + And the voice of the Lord God in its shadow sounded, + Fires from the flowers and nightly bushes bounded; + And where the dark the turning paths submerged, + With sword in hand flamboyant angels surged; + Lions were roaring at the fateful skies, + Eagles hailed death with hoarsely boding cries; + And by the waters all the palm-trees bent + Under the same hard wind of discontent + That beat on Eve and Adam on that sward, + And in the vasty darkness drove them toward + New human worlds more fervent than the old. + + * * * * * + + Now felt the man a magnet manifold + Draw out his strength and mingle it with all; + Ends he divined, and knew what gave them birth; + His lover's lips with words grew magical; + And his unwritten simple heart loved earth, + And serviceable water, trees that hold + Authority, and stones that broken shine. + Fruits tempted him to take their placid gold, + And the bruised grapes of the translucent vine + Kindled his thirst which they were ripe to still. + The howling beasts he chased awoke the skill + That in his hands had slept; and pride dowered him + With vehement strengths that foam and over-brim, + That he himself his destiny might build. + + And the woman, still more fair since by the man + The marvellous shiver through her body ran, + Lived in the woods of gold by perfumes filled + And dawn, with all the future in her tears. + In her awoke the first soul, made of pride + And sweet strength blended with an unknown shame, + At the hour when all her heart was shed in flame + On the child sheltered in her naked side. + And when the day burns glorious and is done, + And feet of tall trees in the forests gleam, + She laid her body full of her young dream + On sloping rocks gilt by the setting sun; + Her lifted breasts two rounded shadows showed + Upon her skin as rosy as a shell, + And the sun that on her pregnant body glowed + Seemed to be ripening all the world as well. + Valiant and grave she pondered, burning, slow, + + How by her love the lot of men should grow, + And of the beautiful and violent will + Fated to tame the earth. Ye sacred cares + And griefs, she saw you, you she saw, despairs! + And all the darkest deeps of human ill. + And with transfigured face and statelier bearing + She took your hands in hers and kissed your brow; + But you as well, men's grandeur madly daring, + You lifted up her soul, and she saw how + The limitless sands of time should by your tide + Be buried under billows singing pride; + In you she hoped, ideas keen in quest, + Fervour to love and to desire the best + In valiant pain and anguished joy; and so, + One evening roving in the after-glow, + When she beheld, come to a mossy plot, + The gates of Paradise thrown open wide, + And the angel beckoning, she turned aside + Without desire of it, and entered not. + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY. + + +The translations in this Anthology have been taken from the following +collections of poems:-- + +Bonmariage (Sylvain), Poèmes, Société française d'Editions modernes, +Paris, 1909. + +Braun (Thomas), Le Livre des Bénédictions, Brussels, 1900. + +Collin (Isi-), La Vallée Heureuse, Liège and Paris, 1903. + +Dominique (Jean), L'Anémone des Mers, Mercure de France, 1906. + +Elskamp (Max), La Louange de la Vie, Mercure de France, 1898. + +----Enluminures, Lacomblez, Brussels, 1898. + +Fontainas (André), Crépuscules, Mercure de France, 1897. + +----La Nef Désemparée, Mercure de France, 1908. + +Gérardy (Paul), Roseaux, Mercure de France, 1898. + +Gilkin (Iwan), La Nuit (reprint of _La Damnation de l'Artiste_, +1890, and _Ténèbres_,1892), Fischbacher, Paris, 1897. (New edition +Mercure de France, 1910.) + +Gille (Valère), La Cithare, Fischbacher, Paris, 1897. + +Giraud (Albert), Hors du Siècle, Vanier, Paris, 1888. + +----La Guirlande des Dieux, Lamertin, Brussels, 1910. + +Kinon (Victor), L'Âme des Saisons, Larcier, Brussels, 1909. + +Lerberghe (Charles van), Entrevisions, Mercure de France, 1898 + +----La Chanson d'Eve, Mercure de France, 1904. + +Le Roy (Grégoire), La Chanson du Pauvre, Mercure de France, 1907. + +----La Couronne des Soirs, Lamertin, Brussels, 1911. + +Maeterlinck (Maurice), Serres Chaudes suivies de Quinze Chansons, +Lacomblez, Brussels, 1906. + +Marlow (Georges), L'Âme en Exil, Deman, Brussels, 1895. + +Mockel (Albert), Chantefable un peu naïve, Liège, 1891. + +----Clartés, Mercure de France, 1902. + +----_Vers et Prose_, 1910. + +----La Flamme Immortelle (in preparation). + +Ramaekers (Georges), Le Chant des Trois Règnes, Brussels, 1906. + +Rency (Georges), Vie, Lacomblez, Brussels, 1897. + +----Les Heures Harmonieuses, Brussels, 1897. + +Séverin (Fernand), Poèmes, Mercure de France, 1907. + +----_Le Centaure_, published in _La Vie intellectuelle_, Nov. 19th, +1909. + +Verhaeren (Émile), Poèmes, Mercure de France, 1900 (reprint of _Les +Flamandes_, 1883; _Les Moines_, 1886; _Les Bords de la Route_, 1891). + +----Poèmes, nouvelle série, Mercure de France, 5th edit., 1906 (reprint +of _Les Soirs_, 1887; _Les Débâcles_,1888; _Les Flambeaux Noirs_, 1890). + +----Poèmes, iiième série, Mercure de France, 5th edit., 1907 (reprint of +_Les Villages illusoires_, 1895; _Les Apparus dans mes Chemins_, 1891; +_Les Vignes de ma Muraille_, 1899). + +----Les Villes tentaculaires, précédées des Campagnes hallucinées, +Mercure de France, 1904. + +----Toute La Flandre, La Guirlande des Dunes, Deman, Brussels, 1907. + +----Les Heures Claires, suivie des Heures d'après-midi, Mercure de +France, 1909. + +----Les Rythmes souverains, Mercure de France, 2nd edit., 1910. + + + +ANTHOLOGIES. + + +Parnasse de la Jeune Belgique, Vanier, Paris, 1887. + +Poètes belges d'expression française (par Pol de Mont), W. Hilarius, +Almelo, 1899. + +Anthologie des Poètes français contemporains, ed. G. Walch, 3 vols., Ch. +Delagrave, Paris, 1906-07. + +Poètes d'Aujourd'hui, ed. Ad. van Bever and Paul Léautaud, 2 vols., 18th +edit., Mercure de France, 1908. + + + +LITERATURE (SELECTED). + + +Bazalgette (Léon), Émile Verhaeren, Sansot, Paris, 1907. + +Beaunier (André), La Poésie Nouvelle, Mercure de France, 1902. + +Edwards (Osman), Émile Verhaeren, _The Savoy_, Nov. 1897. + +Gilbert (Eugène), Iwan Gilkin, Vanderpoorten, Ghent, 1908. + +Gilkin (Iwan), Quinze Années de Littérature, _la jeune Belgique,_ Dec. +1895. + +----Les Origines Estudiantines de la "jeune Belgique" à l'Université de +Louvain, Editions de la Belgique artistique et littéraire, Brussels, +1909. + +Gosso (Edmund), French Profiles, London, 1905. + +----The Romance of Fairyland, with a note on a Belgian Ariosto, _The +Standard_, 27th March 1908. + +Harry (Gérard), Maurice Maeterlinck, translated by Alfred Allinson, +London, 1910. + +Hauser (Otto), Die belgische Lyrik von 1880-1900, Groszenhain, 1902. + +Horrent (Désiré), Ecrivains belges d'aujourd'hui, Lacomblez, Brussels, +1904. + +Kinon (Victor), Portraits d'auteurs, Dechenne et Cie., Brussels, 1910. + +Maeterlinck (Georgette Leblanc), Maeterlinck's Methods of Life and Work, +_Contemporary Review_, Nov. 1910. + +Mockel (Albert), Émile Verhaeren, Mercure de Franco, 1895. + +----Charles van Lerberghe, Mercure de France, 1904. + +Ramaekers (George), Émile Verhaeren, Edition de "La Lutte," Brussels, +1900. + +Rency (Georges), Physionomies littéraires, Dechenne et Cie., Brussels, +1907. + +Schlaf (Johannes), Émile Verhaeren, vol. xxxviii. of "Die Dichtung," +Berlin, 1905. + +Symons (Arthur), The Dawn by Émile Verhaeren, London, 1898. + +----The Symbolist Movement in Literature, London, 1908. + +Thompson (Vance), French Portraits, Boston, 1900. + +Verhaeren (Émile), Les Lettres françaises en Belgique, Lamertin, +Brussels, 1907. + +Visan (Tancrède de), Sur l'oeuvre d'Alfred Mockel, _Vers et Prose_, +April-June 1909. + +Zweig (Stefan), Émile Verhaeren, Mercure de France, 1910. + +----Émile Verhaeren, Insel-Verlag, Leipzig, 1910. + + + + +NOTES. + + +Page 3.--"Red Cheshire." The Dutch cheese so-called is "roux." Braun +suggests that the adjective should be translated "red-haired." + +Page 6.--"Those that we address with 'Sir.'" The cheese sold under the +name of "Monsieur Fromage." + +Page 13, _seq_.--Max Elskamp's poetry is considered somewhat obscure, +and students may find the following equations of help: la Vierge = la +femme pure; Jésus = l'enfance délicieuse; un dimanche solaire = une joie +éclatante; un dimanche de coeur de bois = une joie égoïste; un soldat += brutalité; un juif = un marchand; un oiseau = la vie sous la forme du +verbe; une fleur = la vie sous la forme de la senteur. + +Page 13.--"Of Evening." Sunday is life, the week-days are death; the +poet is the Sunday, therefore, since the week is about to begin again, +he _must_ die. The third stanza means that the Truelove will never again +weep for the fair days of betrothal or marriage which the old family +ring she wears remind her of. + +Page 18.--"Full of cripples." By night, because then the regulations +forbidding begging are more easily set at defiance. + +Page 19, line 6.--An allusion to the painting by Seghers, which +represents the Virgin Mary with lilies, dahlias, and even snowdrops. + +Page 23.--"Here the azure cherubs blow." An allusion to the painting by +Fouquet in the Museum at Antwerp. + +Page 47.--In Huysmans' novel, _À Rebours_, liqueurs are compared with +musical instruments: curaçao corresponds to the clarinet; kümmel to the +nasal oboe; kirsch to the fierce blast of a trumpet, etc. + +Page 100.--Song vii. "Et c'est l'esclavage, n'est-ce pas? auquel +s'astreint tout être qui se dévoue." Beaunier. + +Page 107.--"The running water" is the image of the human soul, +constantly changing, "en devenir dans le devenir." And yet there is in +it a continued, though mobile unity, a permanent _rhythm_. It +objectifies itself in space, but only exists in time, and Mockel sees +its vital sign in those _aspirations_ which guide it towards itself, +which bear it on to its fate. The unity of the mobile river, whose waves +to-morrow will no longer be those they are to-day, is the continuous +current that bears it, as though it aspired to the infinity of oceans. + +Page 110.--The Goblet is woman, who, whether she inspires genius or +sells her body, exists, for us, less by herself than by us; she is what +we make her, like this goblet whose colours vary according to what one +pours into it. + +Page 111.--The Chandelier symbolizes the permanent drama enacted by Art, +placed as it is between the frivolous world,--which tramples the rose of +love under foot,--an the immortal splendour of Nature, which makes it +feel its own feebleness. + +Page 113.--The Angel is the legend of genius. + +Page 116.--The Man with the lyre is the poet, who is less and less +understood as he strikes the graver chords of his lyre. + +Page 122.--The Eternal Bride is the Aspiration towards which we strive. +strive. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONTEMPORARY BELGIAN POETRY*** + + +******* This file should be named 35524-8.txt or 35524-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/5/5/2/35524 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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