Contemporary Belgian Poetry Part 13

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 ma.s.s Their bulk o'er the green corn and nibbled gra.s.s 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 c.o.c.k 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 gra.s.ses 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 G.o.d, my heart is so distraught!

Yet, let me read." It was a traveller's book.

O sailing on broad rivers, on whose sh.o.r.e 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 pa.s.s 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.