Contemporary Belgian Poetry.

[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'sSamson AgonistesandComus, is a historian of painting (Histoire de la Peinture française au xixesiècle 1801-1900, Mercure de France, 1906). Max Elskamp illustrates his own books with quaint, mediæval woodcuts; see, especially, hisAlphabet 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'sWalküretwenty times running. Mockel is a learned musician; of his two volumes of verseChantefable un peu naïveandClartéscontain musical notations of rhythms. Gilkin found it difficult to decide whether to be a musician or a poet.

[3]Verhaeren, who is a Flemingpur 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).

AUTUMN EVENING IN THE ORCHARD.In the monotonous orchard alley glintsThe languid sun that yet is loth to leaveThis 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, whichBut now we gathered, spite of all the richOdour filling the dusk from hay new-mown,Of all the ripe, warm, naked fruit thou artI covet nothing but the savour, whileThou 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 tournamentTo shiver lances for your eyes' content,Making full many a baron bite the dust.Or rather I had been that favoured pageWho trained your hounds and falcons that he mightAfter you down the valley, o'er the heightGo 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 wooThe smile of your loved lips, had sung to youThe secret love of lovers of old time.

THE BENEDICTION OF THE NUPTIAL RING."Ut quæ cum gestaverit fidelitatem integram suo sponso tenensin mutua caritate vivat."Almighty God, bless now the ring of goldWhich bride and bridegroom shall together hold!They whom fresh water gave to You are nowUnited 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 thinUnder its pressure moulds itself ere long,Yet keeps its agile grace and still is strong.So love, which in this symbol lies, with noBeginning 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 divineMother, 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 sheavesWith 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 quaffWith 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 sustainsMuscles grown flabby; and along the veinsLet 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 adipeanimalium 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 browseThe 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 scentOf sheep or fields is in them, in the yardLet them, good Lord, at dawn be beaten hard;And let their edges take on silvery shadesUnder the most red hands of dairymaids;And, round and greenish, let them go to townWeighing 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.

TO THE MUSE.Skilful the rune of symbols to unravel,And mute avowals hearkened unawares,Before the light from lips of flowers faresWith chosen petals I have strown the gravel.She I awaited came not to the lawn,And, solitary, I have chased all nightThe 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 strownMy 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 renewedThy mercy, and thy beauty, and thy youthEternal, 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 makeThy looks more luminous, and deep, and clearThan 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 saveAll the sun's gold vibrating in thy hair.A DREAM.Dream of the far hours whenWe were exiled beyond the paleOf our happiness; draw againOver our love that ancient veil.Offer your lips to the evening breezeThat sings among the branches and passes,Lay back your head on my knees,Where the river the willow glasses.Rest in my hands your headTired with the weight of the autumn in its tresses red,And dream!(A fabulous sunset bleedsIn 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 lagsDies in the waterflags.And the shadows which descendWith the afterglow,Mysterious and slow,Stay on the bank and o'er the waters bendTheir faces of silence.)Dream of our love, of our joys,And in the shadow sing them low;At the rim of your naked lipsMy voice shall ambush your voice.(The moonbeams slow and whiteLinger on the forest tops,Fall and glide on the river they light,And now a veil of radiance dropsOn our protecting willow....)Dream, this is the hour of snow.

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 beesPass hanging on the eddies of the breeze,Bearing on millions of exiguous wingsA little motionless and gilded queen?...Hast thou not felt the orphan grace that startsTo life with life in any beast, and glows,Tormented with enchantment, in the heartsOf 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 swarmOf gilded bees bearing their golden queenUpon 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 flightsOf 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 seizeThis little orphan, golden queen, in stateBorne round the world upon the eddying breezeBy 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 gownWith odorous collars and with shining pearls;Her tapering hand the precious burden holdsOf 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 lagoonAlready 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 rimTo free her sovran soul to fly to God....And yet she cometh, with her exquisite neckBeaten by tresses garlanded with pearls,And the golden youth who loves her with sad cheerHearkens 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 downFor your fatigue to sigh in and to swoon;I will be kinder to you and more sweetThan 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 onIts 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 birdA 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 waveOf scents of roses and the falling night!...A SECRET.I will put my two hands on my mouth, to hushThe words that, when I see you, to it rush.I will put my two hands on mine eyes, lest youShould in them find what I were fain you knew.I will put them on my bosom, to concealThat 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! ...

OF EVENING.All at the heart of a far domain,With those to whom our hearts do strain,My Truelove weeps for me, distraughtBy my death the week has wrought.My heart's Belovèd grieveth sore,And plunges her two hands like flowersInto 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, myWretched soul that will not die.All at the heart of a far domain,My Truelove never will weep againThe festivals the seasons bring,With family rings on fingers twain;My Love has seen me promising,Like a saint, to spirits pureA 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, seeingTowards 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 goldenIn your arms and Christ.FULL OF GRACE.Now more and more, fain were my lipsYour inexhaustible Grace to say,O Mary, at the sailing-dayOf bowsprits and of all my shipsUnto the islands of the sea,Where went my merchandize of old,By winds on other oceans rolledFrom isle to island of the sea.But I have donned the broken shoesOf those who dwell on land, and sprentMy tongue with ash of discontentBecause my memory seems to loseThe 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 staysSalvation that the sails possessUnder the wind the stars caressOf far beyond and other days,And let it be Your self-same GraceIn this to-day of broken shoon,The same sky, and the same round moonAs 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 lightsAs prayers go glimmering through the nightsKnown to me are poor Christmas eyesWeeping with coveting the skyInto their hands with misery meek;And feet that stumble as they seekIn pilgrimage the radiant sky.And then poor hungers too I know,Poor hungers of poor teeth uponLoaves 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, blazeOld summers in their sick dog-days;And in slow whiteness there arisePale shimmering tents deep in my eyesAnd Sicilies are in them, rowsOf 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 beatsUpon 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 saltOf ocean, like the bitter maltDrunk in the land's last orgy, whenFrom 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 runO'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 greenLaid where Your altar candles shine;For all the joys of kermesse days,And all the roads that thither wendAre full of cripples without end,By night are all the kermesse ways.And then the season grows too chillFor 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 allOf altars processional,And now all my country is dightWith dahlias and lilies white,Your candles to glorifyMary, ere May passes by.Lo! endless the pleasure is,May returned, and maladiesBorne to horizons blue,On vessels simple and true,Far away, on the sea so farHardly seen, or like dots they are.Now, under trees, the time glidesIn the street where my life abides;Mary of meek workers, steepIn the May-wood my head in the sleepAnd 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 azureOn houses rosy,Like a child of Flanders preachThe simple religion I teach,Like a sky of azureOn houses rosy;Lo, to the vexedI bring these roses,When their memory to the islands reaches,The voices that my gospel preaches,Like the gladsome textA child's talk glozes.You people happyWith very little:You women and men of my city,And of all my moments of pity,Be happyWith very little;For letters blueOn pages rosy,This is all the book that I read you,Unto your pleasaunce to lead you,In a country blueHouses rosy.TO THE MOUTH.For, you my brothers and sisters,With me in my bark you shall go,And my cousins, the fishers, shall showWhere 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 fishesWhich for the Fridays he wishes,Sole, flounder, mackerel.And St. John the EvangelistLending 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 fablesTo tell in the holy eves.FOR THE EAR.Then nearer and nearer yetTo 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 bearCherubs that flit through the air;And with joy that I scarcely can speakI see you again,Angélique,You with no shrouds on your mast,Safe returned from Iceland at last.But now, likeGabrielle, singYour new sails smooth as a wing,And weep no more,Madeleine,For your nets you have lost on the main,Since all are pardoned, evenThe wind, for kisses given,So that in kisses and gleeThese visiting billows may beContent 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, whoDeparted 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 chinsUpon 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 streamsTo roofs that cluster like an isle;And, Mary, see Your cities smileHappy as any child at play,While from spires and steeples theyProclaim the simple Gospel peaceWith their showering melodiesFrom the gold dawn to the sunset sky,Greeted, Mary of Houses, byThe men of Flanders loving stillThe brown, centennial earth they till.And sing now, all ye merry menWho plough the glebe, sing once againYour Flanders sweet to larks that singWith gladsome voices concerting,And sail afar, ye ships that glassYour flags in billows green as grass,For Jesus holds His hands above,Mary, this festival of loveMade 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 groundIn 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 goHomeward 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 swellWith 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 bedsOf solace for their weary heads.Good-night! and men and women crossArms 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, betweenThe 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.

HER VOICE.O voice vibrating like the song of birds,O frail, sonorous voice wherein upwellsLaughter 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 scentOf 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 greenAutumnal 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 graveMay haunt the leisure of his empty soul.He does not hear the melancholy chauntOf girls who beg before him, hollow, gauntWith 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 wanAs garlands pale?—Of the plains of days agoneWith pools of water lilies, where she strayedOn paths of chance her hands with flowers arrayed,And where alms welcomed her?—And never shoneAs now her eyes her jewels braided onHer gowns of gold and purple and brocade.But she sees nothing round her. In the roomAmber 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 pearlsAnd sapphires in their grasp of gold,In yellow hair that undulatingly unfurlsOver her shoulders slow and cold,And purple cloak exulting with brocade,The Princess of the Manor's Games and Joys.And in the jubilant noiseRivers 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 JoysLifts in a dawn of amethystsHer tender visage that more sadly achesThan 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 comeTo lawns where sistrum, fife, and drumTo 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 nevermoreShall o'er thy golden velvet tresses glide;My heavy arms shall nevermore thy neck enlaceIn passionate embraceRich 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 lapHas stolen from thy proud, young years their sap,Now art thou crossing thresholds far forlornOf mysteries and adventures luring theeWhere monsters crouch beneath the twisted tree;Chimeras and the pitiless unicornShall belch their fire where thou thy way wouldst gropeAnd thou shalt nevermore have my caressTo soothe thee into happy heedlessnessOf 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 throngsOf them that love thee, and the memoryOf thine ancestors shall bring back to theeForgetfulness of mad adventures in the kissOf her who thy Princess and Sister is.LUXURY.How vain are songs! Can they be worth the hymnTo your ecstatic eyes of mine that swim?The noblest song of man no bosom stirs,Weak are sonorous words, but conquerorsAre ye, glances of amber and of fire,Lips you, and clinging kisses slow to tireThat in my soul are scorching! You that dareLeap out of longing, kisses! And you hairOf virgin gold that glints like noonday suns!And marble whiteness where, like lava, runsYour wild blood, snow and brazier!—Here I lieYour slave for ever, at your feet I dieIn sleepful spasms that the senses cloy,And the slow languor of the tasted joy;Mad with your velvety and waxen fleshThat 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 embraceI feel your life blowing upon my face,And entering into me! Your blinding eyesThrill me with raptures of that ParadiseWhose rubies bleed, whose yellow topazesSleep in the sloth of sensualities,And where the limitless horizons hideOur 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 enslaveWith luxury swift and cruelty suave.Through tortures from your native Orient swimIneffably pure o'er peaceful lakes the slimSwans of your voice white in their wilderingAnd subtle scents of snow, and on their wingBear 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 bowerUnder the tufted pleasures of the hour,By the night's tranquil torpor lulled and kissed ...Already yon far dawn of amethystDyes the deep heavens, and the moon at restUpon her soft cloud cushions hath caressedWith 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—hideYour 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 unfoldThe cups of pride of silent, slender gladioles....The mystery wherein dies the rhythm of the wavesIn gleams of kisses long and calm unrolls,And the red coral whereon writhes the alga coldStretches out arms that bleed with calm flowers, and beholdsIts gleams reflected in the rest of waves.Now here you stand in gardens flowered with alga, coldIn 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 wanderingAnd 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 stingUnto his jaded sense, the wind that sweepsThe blue sea round the promontory steepsFreshens 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 runAlong 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 chokesThe water sleepy as a moat's,A tug smokes,And drags its heavy, grating chain,And drags its trainOf ghostlike boats,Walls of blackAlong a hidden trackTowards the arches blearWhere now they disappear.Like sudden palms of gold,Three sunbeams glideTo where the waters hide,And all along the river in the coldLife is again begun,With all its joysOf toil and noiseAwakening 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 recoilTowards the sun in heavens brightWith strength and with delight.Life quickens on facesMad and fervent zest.To live! is when the hot blood racesAnd 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 wiseHave never lived and do not know what joysAre in mad battle, carnage and great noise,When courage with courage vies.The wiseAre they who when the cautious eve creeps on to nightExile themselves from the festival of lightWeeping its tears of proud gold on the river,O'er the lamp-lit book to shiver.To liveIs better, and to ring one's heelOn the floor of a palace won by crimsoned steel,Or underneath a charger's hoofs to treadThe grass of roads down-trodden by the fugitiveFoe who has dyed them red.But the young hour gay with sun,The tiring hour that weeps,Hour after hour creepsHours after hours runAlong 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-treesThe 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 liveThe hours of the river, sleeping on its slopes.Why should we madly follow fugitiveInclement pride and crumbling hopesAlong the precipices of the heavy night,That swallows up all ruined light?No! to liveIs 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 onSave 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.AWAKEAwake!It is a joy among hibernal hoursTo plunge into the pane the hoar-frost flowers;Behold: the petals glittering on the paneOpen 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 noiseBut 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 enfoldOur passion soothed with rich remembrance.LIFE IS CALM.Life is calm,Even as this evening of sweet summer, nowThe bird is silent on the bough,That bends above the river,Whose reeds no longer quiver;And the pacific night and wiseSleeps 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 hushesBetween 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 liesSmiling, 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, beguileThe dole of the black tulip;The fountain weeps in the oldGarden o'er flowers sad,Which by the dawn are cladIn amethyst and in gold:In the boxwood shadow lingers,In sentimentalfêtes,Thechevalier, and awaitsThe princess whose pale fingersAre flowers that bring reliefUnto her languorous grief.INVITATION.The ruby my vow desiresFor your beauty smiling kindIs surely incarnadinedBy a limpid mirror's fires.Ice with the flame interchanges,And your eyes hard with dignityBruise the sobbed longing to beA bauble your hand arranges.But remember the waters yonderCradle the vessels that wanderTo the isle in the bright future hidden,And come while the winter is dark,To sail our adventurous barkMadly 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 wayTo 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 thirstOf being loved, hast too, too well rehearsedThe vanity of combats sterile all,And dost with bitter, pitiless irony seeThose who go following ghosts that ever fleeSink in the chasm where thyself didst fall.

SHE.She whom my heart in dream already lovesWill 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, disguisingMy 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 childWith her sensual mouth's red glow,And her restless eyes that showHow sateless her soul is and wild.The lustful virgin, the childWith her sick flesh fainting aboveThe sweat of novels of love,By which her soul is defiled.She sins in her sleep; and inHer 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 profanedMy 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 peersWith blear eyes through drear darkness, and who blightsThe peace of sleep with stark foreboding fears.The inconsolable night-bird weeping throughThe gloam, the spectral bird who fears the day,Whose panic flitting chills the dark, and whoFills 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 allThat trembles as aspens shake,The thrush sang it at the evenfallTo the listening swan on the blue lake.It is all of love and distress,And of joy and of love, and thenThere are sobs of gold and weariness,And ever comes joy back again.Far, far away flew the thrush,And the swan went ponderingAll 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 strayOf the gorgeous autumn-tides.Now comes the wind, and liftsThe gold of glad forests along;And many a mystical songAlong the breeze with it drifts.This life is most gracious and dear,Enchanting our way as we goWith the laughter and golden glowOf 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.

PSYCHOLOGY.A surgeon, I the souls of men dissect,Bending my feverish brow above their shamelessPerversions, sins, and vices, all their namelessPrimitive lusts and appetites unchecked.Upon my marble men and women spreadTheir open bellies, where I find the hiddenUlcers 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 artWhat my keen eyes in these dark deeps descried.And if I need a subject, I am ableTo 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 dyeOpulently their rich rottennessWith green gold, violet, and red phosphorus.Oozing a sickly sweet, thick, cancerous juice,Its spongy flesh melts in the mouth, and inIts 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 soI 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 thisInfamous poet by thy judgment is!""ET ERITIS SICUT DII."Sick Artist, from the world around thee shrinkingTo 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 achingFor the cooling, carnal draught of their caress?This is a thirst that thou canst best be slaking,Swooning among thy lamp-lit bottles, breakingThe odorous seals of drunken dizziness.Dream drunk with rum, whose tropic-heated spicesFerment into a scented wine that joinsThy subtle spirit in voluptuous vicesWith negro women whose smooth flesh enticesThy lubric hand to their anointed loins.Drink kirsch, as turbulent as cascades shadedBy forests where the maidens bathe their feet;Musked maraschino, sucked by mouths pomadedIn the sick air of brothels golden-braidedBy those who queen it on the yielding seat;And, hypocrite with ice one cannot sunderOut of his flame, drink kümmel, whose bright feastOf boreal snow-masked fire evokes the wonderOf roses under snow, O roses ... underArchangel heavens women of the East.And, for its green of bindweed-tangled fancies,Drink absinthe, which shall open out to theeThose forests where the fairy Vivien dances,And the sage Merlin with her feet entrancesIn 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, steamingBefore the scented, sounding sunrise, glowsA belt of glaciers whose thin peaks of dreamingMirrored upon an azure lake are gleamingIn the tropic valley guarded by their snows.The leaves of mangoes, palms, and fig-trees sighingAre wafting coolness o'er the billowing grass,Where, garlanded like flowers, are women lying,Bathing their lily limbs, beneath the flyingJewels of furtive humming-birds that pass.And a cascade of dazzling nakednessesFalls from the peaks of glaciers in shoals,And every following body holds and pressesThe 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 meshOf luminous hair and supple limbs combining,And from the lofty peaks of glaciers shiningFor ever falling are new waves of flesh.Drink every drop of this pure wine, and wasteIn thine embraces all these limbs unreal.Lie in thy bed of snow, and, undebased,Enjoy all flesh in thine own flesh, and tasteThe 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 sleepDown to the bed, where now his wild eyes weepTheir scalding tears like vitriol, and stareOn broken furniture and carpets whereWeapons, clothes, flowers are in mad medley cast,In sheets still with his kisses warm, thou hastTo soldiers prostituted thee, and spentTheir vigour with thy body's vehementSurging of spasms quivering under them;But what thought, like a hideous diademOf thorns, hath rent thy forehead, when the third,His white flesh scarcely sated, having heardThy 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 mawLugubriously 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 linkThe shackles which for ever shall enslave thee.Sweat, pant, and fill the furnace to the brink,Throw in the coal, and pour the crackling castingThrough the cut sand, beat, crush the pig to shape,Temper the sword, sheet, deck, and rig with mastingThe tyrant ships that sweep the sea with grape,Crowd with machines the hamlet and the haven,To prison thee more deep than dungeons heldIn durance making thee a pauper craven...Stupid humanity! we weld and weldWith 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 consternationThe soot and coal of our relentless hell!See! to the stainless blue of skies upcurlingOur towering chimneys' belched, polluted breath,Above the waste and ravaged lands unfurlingTheir 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 reposeUpon 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 theeAsks 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 lovelinessWomen and youths their envious glances dart;They sigh with lowered eyes, and weep, and pressSometimes 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 vieWith all this freshness blent with tender flame?"O to drink madly on one mouth the kissesOf Aphrodite and Adonis both,And, trembling, to discover all blent blissesIn the same frame to no perversions loth!Faust had left Margaret for thee, and lewdAnacreon had never lost a day onBathyllus, Sappho would not have pursuedIn her escape Erinna, no nor Phaon.Under thy foot earth lapped with pallid flamesTrembles, and all the flowers die where it hoversMan clips no more the woman, and hot damesEnlace their arms no more around young loverO last ideal of decaying races,Mortal revealer of best beauties, thyPoisons poured lavishly in thine embracesHave made the ancient cities rot and die.And now to us thou comest, while unclosesUnder 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 kissesGather our last and loveliest heart's beat.THE DAYS OF YORE.I have inhaled love like a garland sprentWith morning dew, and fragrant with a scentThat 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.

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