Contemporary Belgian Poetry Part 21

The King at the gate was weeping;-- Take care, one scarce can see-- The King at the gate was weeping; They heard the Queen departing, They heard the leaves down-sweeping.

IX.

You have lighted the lamps,-- O! the sun in the garden!

You have lighted the lamps, The sun through the fissures slants, Open the gates of the garden!

The keys of the doors are lost, We must wait, we must wait always, The keys are fallen from the tower, We must wait, we must wait always, We must wait for other days ...

Other days shall open the doors, The forest keeps the bolts, Around us burn the holts, It is the light of the dead leaves, Which burn on the doors' thresholds ...

The other days are wearisome, The other days are also shy, The other days will never come, The other days shall also die, We too shall die here by and bye.

X.

I have sought for thirty years, my sisters, Where hides he ever?

I have sought for thirty years, my sisters, And found him never ...

I have walked for thirty years, my sisters, Tired are my feet and hot, He was everywhere, my sisters, Existing not ...

The hour is sad in the end, my sisters, Take off my shoon, The evening is dying also, my sisters, My sick soul will swoon ...

Your years are sixteen, my sisters, The far plains are blue, Take you my staff, my sisters, Seek also you ...

GEORGES MARLOW.

1872.--.

WOMEN IN RESIGNATION.

On Your poor hands pierced by the nail, With hope's long clinging, the old Women have rested their cold Souls without feeling and frail,

In the hush You are dreaming in This night, good Lord! And they sing To the prodigals wandering In the wildernesses of sin:

They are saying, these voices in pain, They must suffer long until The heavenly dawn shall fill Their songs with brightness again,

That since You have wept above The sins of the mad human race, They must wash with tears their face, And pray to You long in love.

On Your poor hands pierced by the nail, With hope's long clinging, the old Women have rested their cold Souls without feeling and frail.

SOULS OF THE EVENING.

While the spindle merrily sings, Old women sing your complaint, The gas-lamps are misty and faint, And the night to the water clings.

Now Jesus walks where greens The dark, cobbled alley, and rests His poor, pierced hands on the b.r.e.a.s.t.s Of dreaming Magdalenes;

And of every orphan child, And of houses holy with prayer, Mary Mother has care ...

Sing, Jesus meek and mild

Stands in your doorways' gloom, And hears your hymn beseech ...

Let the honey of His speech Your desolate hearts perfume!--

The Shepherd of straying sheep Shall lead you home to the fold ...

But your soul, old women, must weep, Remembering its wounds of old,

Love, and the heart's long burn, The wounds of hope ever sick, And childhood's dreams falling quick, Shed and dead turn by turn.

Lord, on old women have pity, Whose soul, fair fragile toy, Touched by the kiss of the city, Dreams of the sun of joy!

ALBERT MOCKEL.

1866--.

THE GIRL.

Slender, and so virginal, but why not somewhat languid?--her casque of golden hair is starred sometimes with mellow sparks, and mellow is her mauve silk dress soft in its folds.

She is all music, in the music of her movements bathed, they also soft with pensive grace, and very slow with suppleness that undulatingly unrolls.

An evening party. She has danced, she dances still. Men dark and fair have come and led her off, under the chandeliers in this insipid music,--insipid, and amusing her. Much has she danced (O all this light!) and feels a little weary, weary. Yes, several waltzes; of her partners one could talk, or nearly could;--but he is ugly, and his fish eyes middle-cla.s.s. The other, on her programme next, is far more handsome, surely: his keen eyes have metallic glints, his hair is glossy black; he is Italian, is he not, or else from Hungary?

Ah! here he comes.

Two heads incline, she takes an arm: they waltz.

This waltz, it rolls with a voluptuous rhythm, in harmony with the rhythm of the Girl, like convoluted ma.s.ses, musically vaporous and very heavy, volutas without end and curve on curve. They dance, their curves leave traces of caresses in the air, their undulations are a most lascivious music. She? she is very tired, she has no strength as on her cavalier she leans! her thought is vague, so vague along the twining curves, vague in volutas without end, and with the contours of their curves. These curves are turning round lasciviously; she thinks no more, she turns, she turns, she undulates in air and in the music's kisses, tickled by something drunken, by this air which brushes her, this ball:--she s.h.i.+vers.

Now nothing more, her eyes see nothing; things that turn, vague things, volutas vague without an end, and curves that drag her on in velvet rhythms. But all the things around her turn too vaguely, too vaguely cycles turn barbaric, mad; all of it turning, turning; and if she look again she will be sure to fall!...

The waltz continues and lasciviously rolls, rolls in the dizziness of turning things, mad cycles, and all this softness, curves that languish fit to swoon! Feverishly and to flee the crazy dizziness of all these vague and circ.u.mambient things, as if to save her life she keeps her look on him.--He plunges his deep down into the great vague eyes before him, until he sets them shuddering ... This man, his eyes are s.h.i.+ning; strangely beautiful, they s.h.i.+ne with gleams fantastic, and from their fluid comes perverted charm, burning and dominating, almost animal, and with a glaucous glint that troubles her ...

This well-nigh b.e.s.t.i.a.l look upon a somewhat pensive, handsome face....

And it is she, she ... Ashamed, in spite of all her dizziness, she takes away her eyes from him who seeks to conquer her. But all is turning, all these things, these vague things turning, turning O too much! she shuts her eyes to see them not, she could not open them again, the rhythms bear her onward crossing one another, brus.h.i.+ng some lascivious curve again, the vagueness, O such vagueness of the crazy cycles and lascivious curves that ravish her. Delicate t.i.tillation like a feather's sudden touch electrifies her, half-fainting and surrendering she floats like flotsam on his arm; this arm, that like a very soft and powerful billow bears and cradles her; sweetly, irresistibly caresses her, bearing her onward, circling her with a voluptuous embrace, and ... no, no! his eyes through her closed lids she feels them, and their glaucous flame that pierces, conquers her. This glaucous look, this virile and determined look, it weighs upon her, haunting the soft eddyings of the waltz,--and is not this a breath that brushes her, the stifled warmth of a desiring breath, man's breath on her neck....

But the waltz bears her on in whirling, vague, voluptuousness.