Contemporary Belgian Poetry Part 4

And Jesus all rosy, And the earth all blue, Mary of grace, in your round hands upcurled, As might two fruits be: Jesus and the world, And Jesus all rosy, And the earth all blue.

And Jesus, and Mary, And Joseph the spouse, For all my life I place my trust in you, As they in Brittany and childhood do, And Joseph the spouse, And Jesus and Mary.

Then Egypt too, The flight and Herod, My old soul and my feet that tremble, seeing Towards the distant places ambling, fleeing, And the a.s.s and Herod, And Egypt too.

Now, Jesus all golden, Like statues of Christ, O Mary, in your hands that hold the sword, Over my town whereon your tears are poured, Jesus more golden In your arms and Christ.

FULL OF GRACE.

Now more and more, fain were my lips Your inexhaustible Grace to say, O Mary, at the sailing-day Of bowsprits and of all my s.h.i.+ps

Unto the islands of the sea, Where went my merchandize of old, By winds on other oceans rolled From isle to island of the sea.

But I have donned the broken shoes Of those who dwell on land, and sprent My tongue with ash of discontent Because my memory seems to lose

The sounding Psalm that sang You Hail, Who decked my prows in gold attire, When in Your hands the sheets were fire, The sun a spreading peac.o.c.k's tail.

Now be it so, since in me stays Salvation that the sails possess Under the wind the stars caress Of far beyond and other days,

And let it be Your self-same Grace In this to-day of broken shoon, The same sky, and the same round moon As when I sailed, O Rich in Grace.

COMFORTER OF THE AFFLICTED.

Ineffable souls are known to me, In houses of poor bodies pent, And sick to death with discontent, Ineffable souls are known to me;

Known to me are poor Christmas eyes, s.h.i.+ning out their little lights As prayers go glimmering through the nights Known to me are poor Christmas eyes

Weeping with coveting the sky Into their hands with misery meek; And feet that stumble as they seek In pilgrimage the radiant sky.

And then poor hungers too I know, Poor hungers of poor teeth upon Loaves baked an hundred years agone; And then poor thirsts I also know;

And women sweet ineffably, Who in poor, piteous bodies dwell, And very handsome men as well, But who are sick as women be.

COMFORTER OF THE AFFLICTED.

Now Winter gives me his hand to hold, I hold his hand, his hand is cold;

And in my head, afar off, blaze Old summers in their sick dog-days;

And in slow whiteness there arise Pale s.h.i.+mmering tents deep in my eyes

And Sicilies are in them, rows Of islands, archipelagos.

It is a voyage round about, Too swift to drive my fever out,

To all the countries where you die, Sailing the seas as years go by,

And all the while the tempest beats Upon the s.h.i.+ps of my white sheets,

That surge with starlight on them shed, And all their swelling sails outspread.

I taste upon my lips the salt Of ocean, like the bitter malt

Drunk in the land's last orgy, when From the taverns reel the men;

And now I see that land I know: It is a land of endless snow...;

Make thou the snow less hard to bear, O Mary of good coverings, there,

And less like hares my fingers run O'er my white sheets that fever spun.

COMFORTER OF THE AFFLICTED.

I pray too much for ills of mine, O Mary, others suffer keen, Witness the little trees of green Laid where Your altar candles s.h.i.+ne;

For all the joys of kermesse days, And all the roads that thither wend Are full of cripples without end, By night are all the kermesse ways.

And then the season grows too chill For these consumptive steeds of wood, Although the drunken organ should, Alone, keep its illusions still.

Poorer than I have more endured; Despairing of their hands and feet, Poor folks that cough and nothing eat, People too aged to be cured,

With ulcers wherein winter smarts, O Virgin, meekly, turn by turn, They come to You and candles burn, All in a nook of silvered hearts.

COMFORTER OF THE AFFLICTED.

Now is the legend revealed, And my cities also are healed,

Consoled till they love each other, Like a child that has wept, by its mother,

In the things mysterious all Of altars processional,

And now all my country is dight With dahlias and lilies white,

Your candles to glorify Mary, ere May pa.s.ses by.