Contemporary Belgian Poetry Part 17

MAURICE MAETERLINCK.

1862--.

THE HOTHOUSE.

O hothouse in the forest deeps!

And your doors for ever closed!

And all there is beneath your dome!

And under my soul in your a.n.a.logies!

The thoughts of a princess who is hungry, The weariness of a sailor in the desert, A bra.s.s band at the windows of incurables.

Go to the wannest corners!

You think of a woman fainted on a day of harvest, There are postillions in the courtyard of the hospital; Afar goes by a hunter of elks, become a nurse.

Look around in the moonlight!

(O nothing here is in its place!) You think of a mad woman before her judges, A man-of-war at full sail on a ca.n.a.l, Birds of night on lilies, A knell at noon, (Down yonder under these bell-gla.s.ses!) A halting-place of sick men on the moorlands, An odour of ether on a sunny day.

My G.o.d! my G.o.d! when shall we have the rain, And the snow and the wind in the hothouse!

ORISON.

Pity my absence on The threshold of my will!

My soul is helpless, wan, With white inactions ill.

In tasks abandoned stands My soul with sobbing pale, O'er shut things its tired hands Tremble without avail.

And while my heart breathes out Bubbles of lilac dreams, My soul is wafted about In a wax moon's watery gleams;

In a moonlight where glimmer the lorn Lilies of the to-morrows; A moonlight where nothing is born But its hands in the shadow of sorrows.

HOT-HOUSE OF WEARINESS.

O weariness blue in the breast!

Wedding the better sight, In the weeping, wan moonlight, Of my blue dreams with languor oppressed!

This weariness blue evermore, Where through the deep windows green, As in a hot-house are seen, With moon and with gla.s.s covered o'er,

The mighty forests undying Whose nightly forgetfulness, Like a dream motionless, On the roses of pa.s.sion is lying;

Where rises a slow water-beam, Mingling the moon and the sky In a glaucous, eternal sigh, Monotonous as a dream.

DARK OFFERING.

I bring my poor work, which Is like the dreams of the dead, And the moon on the fauna rich Of my remorse is shed:

With swords my wishes crowned, Violet snakes that creep Through my dreams and enlace in my sleep, Lions in suns.h.i.+ne drowned,

Lilies in far waters green, Closed hands that never shall ope, Red stems of hatred between Sorrows of love without hope.

Pity the song, Lord G.o.d!

And let my sad prayers rise, While the scattered moon on the sod Keeps night at the rim of the skies.

THE HEART'S FOLIAGE.

Under the blue crystal bell Of my reveries tired and ill, My griefs intangible Grow gradually still.

Plants of symbols thronging, Lilies of pleasures of old, The slow palms of my longing, Bind-weeds soft, mosses cold.

Alone in the centre of them, One rigid lily heaves Its frail and pallid stem Over the dolorous leaves.

And in the gleams that it pours, Like a gradual moon, towards the bare Blue crystal heavens, soars Its mystical white prayer.

SOUL.

My soul!

O my soul too sheltered verily!

And these flocks of my desires in a hot-house!

Waiting for a tempest on the meadows!

Let us go to the most feverish patients!

They have strange exhalations.

In the middle of them, I cross a battlefield with my mother.

They are burying a fallen comrade at noon, While the sentinels are eating their repast.

Let us go also to the weakest: They have strange perspirations!

Here is a sick bride, Treason on the Sunday, And little children in prison.

(And further on, through the vapour,) Is this a dying woman at a kitchen's door!

Or a sister sh.e.l.ling peas at the bed's foot of an incurable?

And last of all let us go to the most sad: (Last of all, for they have poisons.) O! my lips accept the kisses of a wounded one!