Contemporary Belgian Poetry Part 27

ELEONORA D'ESTE.

Does thy heart, Ta.s.so, burn for thy Princess?

Strive to refine this obscure tenderness, Of which she can accept the flower alone.

Save it make n.o.bler, 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 pa.s.sions 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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.ds 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 out.w.a.tched 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 impa.s.sionate, suave, Which their sick sorrows shall a.s.suage 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 G.o.ds 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 hoa.r.s.e.

All manly pleasures that our being fashion In the rough shock of elements uncouth, All of them I have known with headlong pa.s.sion; With l.u.s.t 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 G.o.ds!

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 G.o.ds, 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.

eMILE VERHAEREN.

1855--.

THE OLD MASTERS.