Emile Verhaeren

“ Be kind and comforting to us, oh light!
And bathe our foreheads now, oh wintry ray!
When we two issue forth this afternoon
To breathe together the last warmth of day.
We loved you formerly with such a pride,
With such a love as our two souls could lend,
That a supreme and sweet and friendly flame
Is due us now that we await the end.
You are that which no man may forget,
From dawn that smites his arm unconquered
To evening when you sleep within his eyes
Your strength abolished and your splendour dead. ”

“ Our strength and ardour in their fearlessness!
Down there, beneath their roofs, by windowside
Or seated by the glowing fireside, thus,
Perhaps on such a night of wind and wet,
What we have thought of them they think of us.
X
When the star-lit heaven broods above our house
We sit in silence during many hours
Beneath its soft intensity of light
To feel more ardent still these selves of ours.
The silver stars are drifting on their way;
Beneath their flame and all their glistening
The great night is deeper and more deep ”

“ When I tell you, in the evening, how my strength
Grows leaden day by day with weight of feebleness!
You wish it not that 1 become shadow and ruin
Like all those who obey the gloomy night's behests,
Though it be with laurel in their mournful hands
And glory sleeping in their hollow breasts.
Ah how time's harsh law is softened by your love
And how your lovely dream disconsolate tears would stem ”

“ Ah, we are happy still and proud to live
When the last ray, that's seen and then is lost,
Brightens an instant the poor flowers of rime
Engraved upon our window by the frost.
Life leaps within us and hope sweeps us on ”

“ And the flowers you bear
Tremble in your hand that shudders as it takes.
And now your dreamy fingers
Reverently shape the sere
Roses wherein autumn lingers,
Weaving them with many a tear,
Into a crown of pale, clear flakes.
The last light dwells upon your eyes and brow
And your slow steps are sad and quiet now.... ”

“ Upon your hands now safely held in mine.
You fear not; and you know most certainly
That nothing dies that dares love loyally,
And that the flame which nourishes us so
Feeds upon ruin's self that it may grow. ”

“ Those clear welcoming flowers along the wall's extent
Will be no longer waiting for us at our return;
The silken waters that prolonged till they were spent,
Under a pure sweet sky no longer reach and yearn.
Of our melancholy plains the flying birds are shy ”