Part 7

For the lover drunken on my lips that burn, Whether he pour in turn The wines of gold and flame or love's wave to my rim, Drinks from my soul for ever strange to him A queenly splendour or the radiance of the skies, Or fury scorching where the harmful ruby lies In the bitter counsel of my jealous topazes.

And, tears or joy, delirium, daring drunkenness, From all this passion that to his is married Nothing of me will gush unto his arid Lips, save the simple and the limpid light Whose gleam is wedded to my empty chalice.

What matter? I have given Desire his cloudland palace, And on my courtesan's bare breast Love lets the hope of his diaphanous flight Languish, and softly rest ... And I laugh, the fragile, frivolous sister of Eve! For me in nights of madness drunken hands upheave Higher than all foreheads to the constellated skies, And then I am the sudden star of lies, That into troubled joys darts deep its radiant gleam-- The sweet, perfidious happiness of Dream.

THE CHANDELIER.

Jewels, ribbons, naked necks, And the living bouquet that the corsage decks; Women, undulating the soft melody Of gestures languishing, surrendering ... And the vain, scattered patter of swift words ...

Silken vestures floating, faces bright, Furtive converse, gliding glances, futile kiss Of eyes that flitting round alight like birds, And flee, and come again coquettishly; Laughter, and lying ... and all flying away To the strains that spin the frivolous swarm around.

Lo, here the burning beauty of a rose Has fallen ... And feeble in its wasted grace it lies, Exhaling its bruised loveliness, the while, Like Love among the smiles, It dies.

Eddying skirts, gay giddiness ... the festival is closed. While somewhat of uneasiness still palpitates, No void subsists of vanished voices; And nothing on the stained boards has remained Except a stem, a chalice,--once a rose.

But the forgotten chandelier, whose grandiose soul Unto the eyes of beauty dedicates Its glorious sheaf of fires without a goal, In halls deserted charms the solitude That nascent morning sheds his pure breeze o'er

And the dawn weaves afar its threads of light. * * * * * Know you that in the Orient, simple, earnest, bright, She whose burning soul immortal shows Arises

... O light!

Down yonder, in the deeper solitude, She who is born, and dies, and is renewed. Life passionately rises under the sky! The fleeing wave has mirrored in its sheen The young smile of the golden morn, That comes across the plain where wheat and rye Grow green, and with the blonde dawn intertwine ... Behold: consumed under the ruby shine In which its glory's arid flame exhausts itself, The chandelier is paling at the breath of Death, And burns its throes out in the face of the Sun.

THE ANGEL.

Some one here has gone to sleep.

While yet the sun is at the Heaven's rim, Under the shadows of domed ilex crests, Innocent, tired, upon the happy grass he rests, And the shadow, scarcely moving over him, Prolongs around his sleep the hem of night.

Who is this child thus dawning on our sight? Is it to any one among you known Whence comes this adolescent, white Traveller, who has halted with us in the night?

Comes he from seas afar, Where islands are? Or from unkempt Forests, or from sterile plains, Whose vastness never any man has dreamt?

Naked and white is he. The stones that clot The road, his feet and knees have wounded not; There is upon his brow something we dread ... Whence comes he, with his beauty dight, He who has halted with us in the night?

His hair is spread Like a wave of light; His closed hand holds a flower unknown; And all his white of an enchanted thing Is like a cloud-scape doubly shown In waters mirroring.

O brothers, take Care that his sleep ye do not break!

But what a snow is this that trembling gleams Frail on his flank, and buries him in our sight? And these strange beams, That like a white and scintillant raiment drape His limbs in folds of light?

O brothers! I have seen ... It is a wing ... Look ye: this is, immortal shape, An angel slumbering.

In the light morn, where the holm its shadow flings, The wanderer adown Heaven's azure steep Has closed his mystic wings: An angel here has gone to sleep!

Never a movement quivers To trouble the transparent, limpid air: Not a leaf shivers ... It is an angel sleeping there.

What silence! O what calm without an end! Whence did the stranger unto us descend? Did he, a weak, frail enemy advance Before the One who strikes, and wills us prone? Or were there monsters to be overthrown, Some day of courage blind, pierced with his lance, And then his wing grazed Death? But no, for with a smile his mouth uncloses; And in the silence he reposes.

O let us whisper! Let the shadow's dome Lengthen the hour of sleep with its fresh gloam. Perchance his soul loved space, but tender And human still, grew weary of the bare And arid splendour of unvaulted air, And all this sun-swept ether limitless ...

Sad was his heart one day, feebler his soul, His brow too heavy; and, without a goal, Wandering through deathless radiance loathing it, He closed his eyes above The dizzy vast of love, And, keeping at his flank his shamed wings, Down floating, on the earth alit.

But when, awakening, to his feet he springs, Angered, his resistless wings will soar and fly, Resounding through the Azure they devour; And, virgin, with a supernatural, clear cry, He in the dawn will fade, in the infinite hour, Like the keen dream that darts through cosmos deeps, When a flaming meteor leaps, And lights the worlds between.

THE MAN WITH THE LYRE.

No man knows whence, from very far, Came a man who bore a lyre, And his eyes were as bright as a madman's are, And he sang a song of fire To the short strings of his lyre, The love of women, and vain, languishing desire, Upon his lyre.

His lyre was frail, and flowered with roses pale; And so sweet rose the voice of his breath, That as far as a man's eye wandereth, From the mountain to the vale, From the valley to the forest, from the forest to the plain, Ran the young men, and the lasses sprang To hear the dulcet strain of pain he sang.

"He's a proud man," said all the men. "Like a soul speaking is this voice of his, So sad and tender, fit to make you swoon, His voice is like a woman's kiss!"-- "Ho!" they said--said all the lasses then-- "He is a lover, with his lyre! Sweetly he speaks, so sweetly with his lyre, We fain would weep, and would be dying soon...."

But now the singer's voice has changed, he sings Upon the long chords of his lyre The deeds of men, and dukes, and kings, Warring afar from Ophir to Cathay, And over all the earth in great array, And weapons shocked by which the soul is rocked,-- And golden oriflammes spread to the breeze's breath To celebrate the joy of life in death.

"O!" the men, "Alas!" the lasses said, "We understand no longer what you say. Your voice that soared, like any wing Freed but now from the great paradise, Has gone,--perhaps more proudly hovering,-- We know not in what country now it flies." "O!" the men, "Alas!" the lasses said. And children, string by string, Cried under dazzled skies.

Now for his grave man's voice the singer tries The greatest chord of all the lyre. And to the gravest chord of all he saith Hope that for very youth soars in a breath, And stretching like a wakened beast desire.... And lo! already, by the willows of the river, Beautiful Joy who passes binding crowns turns her aside.

And suddenly tempestuous grief rings far and wide, Its strength awakening from the mystery of the chords Dream-voices that deliver.... And lo! our fists are clenched and leaping towards Death's iron gates, and bruised recoiling thence.

"Holla!" the men said; and the lasses laughed. "Holla!" the men said, "surely he is daft! He sings, he comes we know not whence; What would he have from us? We have no pence." (And the lasses laughed.) "Follow," the lasses said, "the werwolf we have started." And men and maids stoned him with pebbles of the way, And, twining arms and waists, so glad and gay, Singing and laughing, all departed, Laughing and singing, laughing all the way. * * * * * But now the solitude is moulding A long music folding and unfolding.

Is it an unseen angel's touch? As in the grey Silence might a phantom shape's, That comes, unrolls its raiment, and escapes, A voice flees, when the breeze has touched and passed, And glides within the singing chords.... As a light wind sings at a vessel's mast, The sweet breath mounting from the river towards The singer, binds a chant on the lyre's chords.

It is a wing wrinkling the wave, and in it glassed: It is the vague word moving Nature through and through, And which the human lip shall never speak....

And now it bears a soul into the blue; And of a sudden all the melody Rings out with such a grave accord towards The skies, that in the radiant deeps of space the chords, Magnified, no man can fathom how, Have brushed God's viewless brow!

SONG OF TEARS AND LAUGHTER.

Two women on the hill-side stood, Where the long road winds through the wood, At dusk of day. One of them laughs, a-laughing glad and gay, One of them sings, mocking all grisly care; The other moans, and sighs in her despair, The other sobs, crying her heart away.

"Ho!" (says the one) "sweet glides the breeze, My drunken heart upon it flees...."

The other moans, "The wind blows chill, My heart is O! so sad and ill."

One told her story to the grass-green hill:

"Years and years gone my husband went from me, (Upon the breeze my laughter bounds and blows!) He went to sail upon the doleful sea, And God knows he has slain his thousand foes. But let the drunken breeze be blowing strong, He will come back with April's sun ere long, And we shall laugh at troubles o'er and done, Counting the golden booty he has won."

So glad and gay, she laughs and sings her song.

And the other moans in sorrow broken-hearted; The words are broken in her voice that grieves.

"The wind groans; my soul with sorrow heaves; My lord, my lover he is far departed! His flesh with mine was one, His soul and mine were blent. And yet one day from me he went, And on my lips held out in vain, Like a drop hung on the rim Of passion's cup filled full for him, Is trembling still a kiss I gave not back again.

Far, far away, upon the bloody 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 bluster 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 sturdy 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! God, 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 God 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 passes ... my kisses fade Like a wing that flits through space.

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 prickly 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 lust, 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.

In the autumnal thicket, thinned Along its mournful arches by the wind, No longer to dead twigs but sapwood quick, Corrupting trunks that time left whole, The reeking parasites in millions stick, Like to the carnal ill that gnaws the soul Of those who at the feet of women fawn.

And Hell has blessed their countless spawn.

And though they cannot reach the surging tops Of the unshaken columns of the Church, In spreading crops The parasites with poison smirch And mottle with strange stains the fruits The Monstrance ripens in the groves of Rome.

Trusting that ancient orchard's sainted roots, Whoever of the leprous apples eats Shall feel his faith grow darkened with a gloam That filters heresy's corroding sweets.

More hideous than saprophytes, And therefore for the sacrilege more fit, Upon the Corn and Vinestock sit Minute and miserable parasites; And o'er the Eucharist their tiny bellies, To cat and crimson it, have crept. Their occult plague has for three hundred years Eaten the very hope of mystic ears, Wherever the Christian Harvester has slept. And while, in the land of heavy, yellow beers, In the brewing-vat of barren exegeses Some new-found yeast for ever effervesces, The saints whose blood turns sick and rots, Waiting till a second Nero shall For their cremation light a golden carnival, Behold their bodies decked with livid spots.

GEORGES RENCY.

1875--.

WHAT USE IS SPEECH?

What use is speech, what use is it to say Words that without an echo die away, And only leave vain sadness after? All a forest of shadow rings with laughter, If thou but move thy hand to grasp at life!

My love, the path on which we laugh with life Pales in a doubt befogged with roads that leads not thorough; The night is triumphing with stars, towards to-morrow! In the night, thou sayest, shadowy terrors fall. Be undeceived, there is no night: There is only multiform, enormous light, And the stars are there, for thee to be drunk withal!

THE SOURCE.

Our feet kiss where the source is glistening In the glad gloaming softening the trees. Its waters murmur mysteries to the breeze, And we in ravishment are listening. The leaves are paling in the twilight chill: A mystic something in the air is swimming; Our eyes with happy tears are over-brimming; And now the source grows timid, and is still. The shadow makes the world so fair and frail; Wouldst thou not, like a banner on the gale, Be fain to shake thy heart out tenderly?-- But no, say nothing: silence is a veil For fervent thoughts that utterance only mars. Let us sit hand in hand, and converse be Without a word under the peace of stars.

THE FLESH.

O carnal love, life's laughter! Under these Free Eden skies and on these blossomed leas, Thy kiss is on these budding lips of ours. The high grass is all gold, the drunken flowers Voluptuously languish, every one, Feverish as the earth is with the sun.

My heart leaps like a beast of light, and rears And madly o'er the royal road careers, Where my desires' processional altars are. Your flesh is quivering and to mine replies, Dearest, and glassed within your great pale eyes Is Heaven immensely blue and deep and far.

Kiss me! The hour is sweet, and pure our kiss. The deathless boon of living sings in us. Let us with ravishment delirious Possess each other, and in infinite bliss Be born again, knowing life's mysteries!

Fold me and fill me with your hot caress, O human goddess naked, exquisite! I am drunken with your dazzling loveliness, O queen of grace and beauty dowered with your Young budding flesh so marvellously pure!

FERNAND SEVERIN.

1867--.

THE CHAPLET.

_Fiumina amem sylvasque inglorius_.--VIRGIL.

My forest, winter's captive, I have seen Softly awakening under warmer breezes: In bluer air my forest shimmering green Wafts down the wind the scent that in its trees is.

An olden happiness, and yet unknown: Trembles my simple heart, these things beholding With pearls of dew the burgeoned boughs are strown Trembling, this morning hour, my woods unfolding,

O Muses! if so passionate a love Survive these leaves in songs of mine that please ye, Seek not to soften to the wrinkles of My brow the oak's or laurel's bough uneasy.

The leaves were quivering open, frail as flowers! O! let the light bough of this foliage, shining With the cold tears of Night's imprisoned hours, For ever be mine idle brows entwining!

Re manlier brows by prouder fillets swathed! But I would live renownless, lonely-hearted, And to those virgin haunts return unscathed Whence my child's soul hath never yet departed.

THE LILY OF THE VALLEY.

I feel my heart for ever dying, bruised By all the love it never will have used, Dying in silence, and with angels by, As simply as in cradles infants die, Infants that have no speech. O God-given heart, Guarded by vigilant seraphim thou art! No thing shall soil thy natal raiment! Thou, Rest thee content with no kiss on thy brow, Save of maternal summer eves, and die In thy desire and thy virginity. Thy sacrifice hath made thee shy and proud; Thy life with very emptiness is bowed. Made to be loved, loved thou shalt never be, Though many maids would stretch their arms to thee, As to the Prince who through their fancies rides. Alas! and thou hast never known these brides; To thee they come not when calm evening falls, The pensive maids to whom thy longing calls; And thou art dying of thy love unused, Poor sterile heart, my heart for ever bruised!

SOVRAN STATE.

In nights impure moans one with fever stricken: "Lord! let a maiden bring me, for I sicken, Water and grapes, and quench my thirst with them.

Spring water! Fruits of a virgin vine! And let Her fresh and virgin hands lie on the fret Of my King's brow burnt by its diadem."

O pitiful crown upon a head so lowly! Does the unquiet night allegiance show thee? Thou King of beautiful lands that never were.

"O stars among the trees! O waters pale! Comes the expected dawn in opal veil? Pity the tired and lonely sufferer:

And grant me, Lord, after the night out-drawn, The sleep and boon of Thy forgiving dawn; And let Thy chosen heart no longer bleed!"

But answer makes the Lord in stern denial: "Leave thou, for nobler verse, to pain and trial Thy heart, the open book the angels read."

THE KISS OF SOULS.

You who have died to me, you think you live! Living, your squandered gems and lilies shed! But since the dream you were is fugitive, Love, calm and sad, whispers that you are dead.

She that you were survives in dreams: I press Her virgin hands, I hear the vows she swears. Hath not this evening that old loveliness? I seem to breathe the blossoms that she wears.

Hearts had been beating long before they spoke, But eyes had speech, and tender voices ringing, Docile to love like perfect lyres, awoke The forest's wondering echo with their singing.

A lovelier and a lonelier evening came; The sun behind the breathless forest set. Who was it hushed our voices? For in shame We bent our eyes down that by chance had met.

The treasure of our hearts this one deep look Delivered up! Our secrets were in this One look exchanged that our two spirits took, And wedded in their first and only kiss.

HER SWEET VOICE.