Contemporary Belgian Poetry Part 24

Far, far away, upon the b.l.o.o.d.y plain, (O! in the wind the wailing wild of pain!) Perchance he fell and now he dies,--or some Woman has with her love his heart o'ercome, Some woman's eyes have robbed my happiness ...

With pain and love my heart is all forlorn; I hear my sorrow and the wind's distress Blent in the baleful bl.u.s.ter of the corn.

I know! Another woman's kisses sever His heart from mine! But what is this disgrace To me, the flesh of his flesh now and ever?

Let him come back! I languish for his face.

Let him come back to where his truelove lies, And every day my tears for him shall race Down on my pale hands from my withered eyes."

"Ho!" says the one, (a-singing glad and gay), "Thy tears are at the wind's will borne away.

See, in the valley greens the gracious spring; The warbling bird is gladdening the leaves!

O let the breeze blow far thy voice that grieves, For the breeze is come, with perfumes on his wing And the meadows bloom under the April rain.

Laughter! I know no more of tears and pain."

"Ah!" says the other, "woe and lackaday!"

"O!" says the one,--and laughing wends her way.

Two women on the hill-side stood.

And now, from the far fields and near the wood, Two wounded men come trailing up the way.

No standard waves its joy before their face, No st.u.r.dy mule is bearing their array.

Alone, and slowly, up the path they pace, And, drop by drop, blood marks their every trace.

And of a sudden crying from the brant, The blended voices of two women pant;-- And the wind may moan, and laugh the breeze, For grief and joy mingle their ecstasies.

"It is my husband! G.o.d, scarce liveth he ...

(My laugh is stifled dying in the breeze!) Alas! it is my husband, fainting, bruised, Drop by drop his blood has oozed ...

Curst be the hour my husband went from me!

Curst, curst be G.o.d who hears and sees!"

Two cries of women, fury and caress, Cry without hope and cry of happiness ...

"It is my lord, alive, my lover dear ...

(My tears are dried, and on the breeze they flee!) O it is he indeed! My lord is here, Bruised, wounded, pitiful, with panting breath, But loyal to my heart that quivereth ...

Blest be the day gives my true love to me!"

And the wind may moan, and sing the breeze ...

For joy and grief have blent their ecstasies.

For mirrored in the evasive wave appears A double brow; an angel sleeps beside The waking angel; from the plaint that died Thanksgiving soars; and, mingling smiles with tears, Days with black jewels gem a diadem For glittering Night whence Death comes unto them.

THE ETERNAL BRIDE.

I have dreamt thee kind, and dreamt thy careful eyes, Sister unknown, eternal bride of mine.

Wife of my thought, I have bent my mouth to thine, And slowly thou hast spoken,--in this wise:

"I flash, I glitter, I fade.

Enjoy my love ere it flees, But seek not where I have strayed, My trace is like sand on the breeze.

My kiss falls on thy face....

But I am unseen, a shade That pa.s.ses ... my kisses fade Like a wing that flits through s.p.a.ce.

Listen, and think! I am she Who opens thine eyes in dream.

I am the wonderful beam Of a mystery unveiled to thee.

I am hot as the sun at heaven's steep, And more than smoke I am light; And I glide through the odours of night To visit thee in thy sleep."

THE BRIDE OF BRIDES.

O thou who hauntest my nights, Spectre of Time, immense, Voiceless, eternal shadow, Monster for whose feet we hark, And peer for thy marrowless bones in vain through the darkness dense, I know thou art near me ... I tremble, and wait for thee in the dark.

O shame! Am I stricken with terror? Absolve with the calm of thy scorn My soul that is dizzily whirling under thy piercing eyes!

Yet once my forehead fancied, in its tender and radiant morn, That folded into thy bosom every sorrow dies.

I have hated thee in my terror, O Priestess of Time, O Death.

Thy fathomless anger swells and rolls a mournful sea, And the flesh in the shock of thy billows writhes, and with stifled breath Cries through the din of thy laughter, crying unto thee....

But come! ... O Bride of embraces twined like an octopus!

I give to thy greedy heart a valiant and quiet heart,-- Since it is true that Love soars out of Death as does A lily out of a coil of encircling serpents dart.

GEORGES RAMAEKERS.

1875--.

THE THISTLE.

Rooted on herbless peaks, where its erect And p.r.i.c.kly leaves, austerely cold and dumb, Hold the slow, scaly serpent in respect, The Gothic thistle, while the insects' hum Sounds far off, rears above the rock it scorns Its rigid virtue for the Heavens to see.

The towering boulders guard it. And the bee Makes honey from the blossoms on its thorns.

MUSHROOMS.

Whether with hues of corpses or of blood,-- Phallus obscene or volva as of glue-- In the rank rotting of the underwood, And those that out of dead beasts' bodies grew, Fed by the effervescence Of poisonous putrescence, Flourish the saprophytes in mould and must.

Plants without roots and with no leaves of green, Souls without faith or hope--they thrust Protuberances rank with l.u.s.t, Inert, venene.

And if there is not death in all of them, It is because some sect among them breeds From less putrescent wood fallen from the stem Of the Living Tree whose severed bough still feeds.