by
Emile Verhaeren
To see beauty in all, is to lift our own Soul
Up to loftier heights than do chose who aspire
Through culpable suffering, vanquished desire.
Harsh Reality, dread and ineffable Whole,
Distils her red draught, enough tonic and stern
To intoxicate heads and to make the heart burn.
O clean and pure grain, whence are purged all the tares!
Clear torch, chosen out amid many whose flame;
Though ancient in splendour, is false to its name!
It is good to keep step, though beset with hard cares,
With the life that is real, to the far distant goal,
With no arm save the lucid, white pride of one's soul!
To march, thus intrepid in confidence, straight
On the obstacle, holding the stubborn hope
Of conquering, thanks to firm blows of the will,
Of intelligence prompt, or of patience to wait;
And to feel growing stronger within us the sense,
Day by day, of a power superb and intense!
To love ourselves keenly those others within
Who share a like strife with us, soar without fear
Toward that one future, whose footsteps we hear;
To love them, heart, brain, and because we are kin
Because in some dark, maddened day they have known
One anguish, one mourning, one string with our own!
To be drunk with the great human battle of wills—
—Pale, fleeting reflex of the monstrous assaults,
Golden movements of planets in heaven's high vaults—
Till one lives in all that which acts, struggles, and thrills,
And avidly opens one's heart to the law
That rules, dread and stern, the whole universe o'er!
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by
Emile Verhaeren
O splendid, spacious day, irradiate
With flaming dawns, when earth shows yet more fair
Her ardent beauty, proud, without alloy;
And wakening life breathes out her perfume rare
So potently, that, all intoxicate,
Our ravished being rushes upon joy!
Be thanked, mine eyes, that now
Ye still shine clear beneath my furrowed brow
To see afar, the light vibrating there;
And you my hands, that in the sun yet thrill,
And you, my fingers, that glow golden still
Among the golden fruit upon the wall
Where hollyhocks stand tall.
Be thanked, my body, that thyself dost bear
Yet firm and swift, and quivering to the touch
Of the quick breezes or of winds profound;
And you, straight frame, and lungs outbreathing wide,
Along the shore or on the mountain-side,
The sharp and radiant air
That bathes and grips the mighty worlds around!
O festal mornings, calm in loveliness,
Rose whose pure face the dewdrops all caress,
Birds flying toward us, like some presage white,
Gardens of sombre shade or frailest light!
What time the ample summer warms the glade,
I love you, roads, by which came hither late
She who held hidden in her hands my fate.
I love you, distant marshes, woods austere,
And to its depths, I love the earth, where here
Beneath my feet, my dead to rest are laid.
So I exist in all that doth surround
And penetrate me:—all this grassy ground,
These hidden paths, and many a copse of beech:
Clear water, that no clouding shadows reach:
You have become to me
Myself, because you are my memory.
In you my life prolonged for ever seems,
I shape, I am, all that hath filled my dreams;
In that horizon vast that dazzles me,
Trees shimmering with gold, my pride are ye;
And like the knots upon your trunk, my will
Strengthens my power to sane, stanch labour still.
Rose of the pearl-hued gardens, when you kiss
My brow, a touch of living flame it is;
To me all seems
One thrill of ardour, beauty, wild caress;
And I, in this world-drunkenness,
So multiply myself in all that gleams
On dazzled eyes,
That my heart, fainting, vents itself in cries.
O leaps of fervour, strong, profound, and sweet,
As though some great wing swept thee off thy feet!
If thou hast felt them upward hearing thee
Toward infinity,
Complain not, man, even in the evil day;
Whate'er disaster takes thee for her prey
Thou to thyself shalt say
That once, for one short instant all supreme
Which time may not destroy,
Thou yet hast tasted, with quick-beating heart,
Sweet, formidable joy;
And that thy soul, beguiling thee to set
As in a dream,
Hath fused thy very being's inmost part
With the unanimous great founts of power
And that that day supreme, that single hour,
Hath made a god of thee.
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by
Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
The Temple bells are ringing,
The young green corn is springing,
And the marriage month is drawing very near.
I lie hidden in the grass,
And I count the moments pass,
For the month of marriages is drawing near.
Soon, ah, soon, the women spread
The appointed bridal bed
With hibiscus buds and crimson marriage flowers,
Where, when all the songs are done,
And the dear dark night begun,
I shall hold her in my happy arms for hours.
She is young and very sweet,
From the silver on her feet
To the silver and the flowers in her hair,
And her beauty makes me swoon,
As the Moghra trees at noon
Intoxicate the hot and quivering air.
Ah, I would the hours were fleet
As her silver circled feet,
I am weary of the daytime and the night;
I am weary unto death,
Oh my rose with jasmin breath,
With this longing for your beauty and your light.
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