Contemporary Belgian Poetry Part 12

You leathers red with autumn's, victory's dyes!

In some old oratory's night you blaze, Where sleeps the heavy splendour of dead days; You with your hues of epic, evening skies, Mysterious as fiery meres of gold, You dream of those who trailed their swords, and bowed Above your cus.h.i.+ons stamped with wafers proud Their gashed, tanned faces in the days of old, With an odour of adventure in their capes.

Red leathers whom the peace of hangings drapes, You are like tragic sunsets, worn were ye By legendary heroes, who enriched The Kings they served, and all the world bewitched, And who upon a copper, kindled sea, You Cordovans dyed deep with war and pride, Embarked in summer cool of eventide!

You are chimerical with gathered lives; Of new Americas you guard the gleams, You sunk in dazzled and vermilion dreams, In you the soul of ancient suns survives!

FLORISE.

Richly mature, upon the bed of joy Strown with crushed flowers, Florise bends lovingly Her heavy-lidded great eyes o'er the boy Whom she has made man ere his p.u.b.erty.

Fair as a sunset that on roses lingers, Sweet as the wind is he in lilac-trees.

With grat.i.tude he fondles the deft fingers That guided him into love's mysteries.

Heavy with glad fatigue, their senses thus Dream, but breaking off their amorous Embrace, as though a cry she would withhold,

She feels her heart within her pale, and presses Her face upon the pillow, for she guesses Her too young lover sees her growing old.

HECATE.

The moon has a kiss that clings Like those of cold women whom Minions with fertile womb Drive from the bed of Kings.

She weeps her white distress On spires, and lays a sheet Of suppliant light at the feet Of crosses pitiless.

But breaks her prayer, which is vain, And raises herself again, In pale and barren pride;

And casts, with the cruel glance Of her lidless eye, far and wide Hysteric radiance.

IN THE REIGN OF THE BORGIAS.

In the gilt palace where young slave-girls show Like bunches of gold grapes their b.r.e.a.s.t.s erect, In a soft room with burning drapery decked, The conclave's end illumes a golden glow.

Near pages who their yellow hair have smoothed, And whom the evening's kisses feminize, Sit, red as lava in their gorgeous dyes, The Roman Cardinals, by music soothed.

They wors.h.i.+p flesh; and the unnatural, thinned Voices of eunuchs quiver o'er their napes With a thrill of pleasure like the l.u.s.t of rapes;

And Roman girls dishevel in the wind, In the fantastic, smoky night of porches, Their manes of fire like wildly streaming torches.

ABSORPTION.

Woman, my longing to be nothing clings To thee, whose stagnant eyes are pools of night, Liquid indifference, where is no light Save the kaleidoscope of imaged things.

Thy sable hair, so sultry and so fresh, When I untie it, billows o'er thy shape Like evening's shadow o'er a pale landscape, And slowly eats the whiteness of thy flesh.

The sapid kiss of thy rich-moulded mouth Falls, with no impulse known, and with no sound, As ripened fruit falls heavy to the ground, In the slow silence of the autumn's drouth.

As into water I descend in thee; And I am cradled vaguely on thy b.r.e.a.s.t.s, Which are as white as billows' foamy crests, And heave above thy breathing like the sea.

Thy cadenced walk is like old liturgies; It trails with royal rhythm its broad verses, And with grave grace before mine eyes rehea.r.s.es All the Gregorian chant's solemnities.

O save me from my murderous dreams, thou bright Bosom of silence, mouth that sates the sense, Urn of oblivion, pillow of indolence; Annihilate me in thy bosom's night!

My weakness by thy savorous strength is nursed, And in thy gaping love absorbing me I taste the time when all I am shall be In Nature's vast and flowering corpse dispersed.

THE YOUTH AMONG THE LILIES.

In the voluptuous Room of Lilies, made As a deaf ear by the unhealthy shade Of vinous tapestry wherein ferments The sunset, drunk with Church and censer scents The dying Dauphin, with his woman's slow Eyes, sees at his feet the ermine snow Of the hushed carpet, and the oriel's slit Sifting a trembling glimmer on to it Of lying lilacs and of faery roses, And the pale youth his heavy lids uncloses And sees upon the heaven's crimson rim Women whose lifted b.r.e.a.s.t.s call unto him.

RESIGNATION.

I have fought against myself, I have cried in pain, Writhed breathless in my wounded spirit's night, And with my life in rags, a piteous sight, I come out of the h.e.l.l which is my brain.

I know full well to-day, my dream was mad; My love of autumn was a crime, no doubt; And like a nail I tear the yearning out That my too simple heart for childhood had.

My cross! Lance in my side! I bring to you This verse like Christmas evenings white and calm, When the sovran palpitation of the palm Hovers against the heaven's freezing blue;

This verse whereinto all my grief shall pa.s.s, Verse of a man resigned, misunderstood, Verse into which my love must shed its blood, Long bleeding, like a sunset on stained gla.s.s.

VOICES.

Voice of my weeping blood, voices you of my flesh, My panting, frantic flesh, O pensive voices, Louder than when a surging crowd rejoices, Hus.h.!.+ lest the dear, dead past should bloom afres.h.!.+

Be silent, you long voices! Memory closes On velvet voices, voices of flowers of old That dreamt in her flesh and sang in her voice of gold; Voice of lascivious jasmine and moss roses,

Be silent! Hush my sorrow and my shame!

Into my heart silence and winter came: Silence is snowing into my heart's dark vast.

Snow, snow, O silence! Spread your cool above h.e.l.l's roses, cover up their fires at last, And in the shadow slain my only love.