Poems of Emile Verhaeren Part 2

As though the flames would burn his G.o.d.

The fire Funnel-like hollows its way yet higher, 'Twixt walls of stone, up the steeple's height; Gaining the archway and lofty stage Where, swinging in light, the bell bounds with rage.

The daws and the owls, with wild, long cry Pa.s.s screeching by; On the fast-closed cas.e.m.e.nts their heads they smite, Burn in the smoke-drifts their pinions light, Then, broken with terror and bruised with flight.

Suddenly, 'mid the surging crowd.

Fall dead outright.

The old man sees toward his brandished bells The climbing fire With hands of boiling gold stretch nigher.

The steeple Looks like a thicket of crimson bushes, With here a branch of flame that rushes Darting the belfry boards between; Convulsed and savage flames, they cling, With curves that plant-like curl and lean.

Round every joist, round every pulley, And monumental beams, whence ring The bells, that voice forth frenzied folly.

His fear and anguish spent, the ringer Sounds his own knell On his ruined bell.

A final crash, All dust and plaster in one grey flash, Cleaves the whole steeple's height in pieces; And like some great cry slain, it ceases All on a sudden, the knell's dull rage.

The ancient tower Seems sudden to lean and darkly lower; While with heavy thuds, as from stage to stage They headlong bound.

The bells are heard Plunging and crashing towards the ground.

But yet the old ringer has never stirred.

And, scooping the moist earth out, the bell Was thus his coffin, and grave as well.

THE SNOW

Uninterruptedly falls the snow, Like meagre, long wool-strands, scant and slow, O'er the meagre, long plain disconsolate.

Cold with lovelessness, warm with hate.

Infinite, infinite falls the snow.

Like a moment's time.

Monotonously, in a moment's time; On the houses it falls and drops, the snow.

Monotonous, whitening them o'er with rime; It falls on the sheds and their palings below.

And myriad-wise, it falls and lies In ridged waves In the churchyard hollows between the graves.

The ap.r.o.n of all inclement weather Is roughly unfastened, there on high; The ap.r.o.n of woes and misery Is shaken by wind-gusts violently Down on the hamlets that crouch together Beneath the dull horizon-sky.

The frost creeps down to the very bones, And want creeps in through the walls and stones; Yea, snow and want round the souls creep close, --The heavy snow diaphanous-- Round the stone-cold hearths and the flameless souls That wither away in their huts and holes.

The hamlets bare White, white as Death lie yonder, where The crooked roadways cross and halt; Like branching traceries of salt The trees, all crystallized with frost, Stretch forth their boughs, entwined and crost.

Along the ways, as on they go In far procession o'er the snow.

Then here and there, some ancient mill, Where light, pale mosses aggregate, Appears on a sudden, standing straight Like a snare upon its lonely hill.

The roofs and sheds, down there below.

Since November dawned, have been wrestling still, In contrary blasts, with the hurricane; While, thick and full, yet falls amain The infinite snow, with its weary weight, O'er the meagre, long plain disconsolate.

Thus journeys the snow afar so fleet.

Into every cranny, on every trail; Always the snow and its winding-sheet, The mortuary snow so pale.

The snow, unfruitful and so pale.

In wild and vagabond tatters hurled Through the limitless winter of the world.

THE GRAVE-DIGGER

In the garden yonder of yews and death, There sojourneth A man who toils, and has toiled for aye.

Digging the dried-up ground all day.

Some willows, surviving their own dead selves.

Weep there around him as he delves.

And a few poor flowers, disconsolate Because the tempest and wind and wet Vex them with ceaseless scourge and fret.

The ground is nothing but pits and cones, Deep graves in every corner yawn; The frost in the winter cracks the stones, And when the summer in June is born One hears, 'mid the silence that pants for breath, The germinating and life of Death Below, among the lifeless bones.

Since ages longer than he can know, The grave-digger brings his human woe, That never wears out, and lays its head Slowly down in that earthy bed.

By all the surrounding roads, each day They come towards him, the coffins white, They come in processions infinite; They come from the distances far away.

From corners obscure and out-of-the-way.

From the heart of the towns--and the wide-spreading plain.

The limitless plain, swallows up their track; They come with their escort of people in black.

At every hour, till the day doth wane; And at early dawn the long trains forlorn Begin again.

The grave-digger hears far off the knell, Beneath weary skies, of the pa.s.sing bell, Since ages longer than he can tell.

Some grief of his each coffin carrieth-- His wild desires toward evenings dark with death Are here: his mournings for he knows not what: Here are his tears, for ever on this spot Motionless in their shrouds: his memories.

With gaze worn-out from travelling through the years So far, to bid him call to mind the fears Of which their souls are dying--and with these Lies side by side The shattered body of his broken pride.

His heroism, to which nought replied, Is here all unavailing; His courage, 'neath its heavy armour failing.

And his poor valour, gashed upon the brow.