Chapter II: Introduction (1)

Otto Hauser refers the Belgian renascence in art and literature to the influence of the pre-Raphaelites. The influence of painting is at all events certain.[1] That of music is not less marked.[2] Baudelaire has been continued by Rodenbach, Giraud, and Gilkin. Verlaine's method in _Fetes galantes_ is imitated in Giraud's _Heros et Pierrots_ (Fischbacher, Paris). The naturalistic style of Zola was independently initiated in Belgium by Camille Lemonnier, who directly influenced Verhaeren. But the most potent influence is that of Mallarme, whose symbolism has transformed contemporary poetry. It was a feature of the symbolists to return to the free metres and the simplicity of the folk-song; and there are echoes of popular poetry in the verse of Braun, Elskamp, Gerardy, Kinon, van Lerberghe, and Mockel.

Belgium is a country of mixed nationalities. The two languages spoken are Flemish and French. Flemish is a Low German dialect, the written form of which is identical with Dutch. Practically all educated Flemings speak French, which is the official language; the French Belgians, who rarely know Flemish,[3] are called Walloons. Only those authors who write in French are represented in the present volume, and they may be classed as follows:

Flemings:--Elskamp (French mother), Fontainas (French admixture), Giraud, Kinon (Walloon admixture), van Lerberghe, Le Roy, Maeterlinck, Ramaekers, Verhaeren.

Walloons:--Bonmariage (English mother), Braun (German grandfather), Isi-Collin, Jean Dominique, Gerardy (Prussian Walloon), Gilkin (Flemish mother), Gille, Marlow (English grandfather), Mockel (distant German extraction), Rency, Severin.

The Belgian poets are again divided into two very hostile camps with regard to metrical questions. The Parnassians (the term is used for want of a better) cling to the traditional forms of French verse (what Byron called "monotony in wire"), and to the time-honoured diction; whereas the _verslibristes_ use the free forms of verse imported into France from Germany by Jules Laforgue, and perfected by (among others) the American Viele-Griffin. It must be noted, however, that there is a tendency among the _verslibristes_ to return to the classical style: Verhaeren, who wrote in _vers libres_ after his first two volumes, has, in his last book, _Les Rythmes souverains,_ approximated to the regular alexandrine. Van Lerberghe, in a letter written in 1905, condemns the _vers libre_; but his own work is an immortal monument of its practicability.[4] The chief Parnassians are Giraud, Gilkin (whose _Promethee,_ however, is in _vers libres_), Gille, and Severin, Max Elskamp is a _verslibriste_ only in his use of assonance.

Belgian literature begins, for all practical purposes, with Charles de Coster's national epic _Uylenspiegel_. De Coster died young, and was followed by the novelist Camille Lemonnier (1844-). Then comes the flood-tide, not in literature only, for Fernand Khnopff, Georges Minnes, Theo van Rysselberghe (the bosom friend of Verhaeren), and Constantin Meunier are as distinguished in painting and sculpture as, for instance, Georges Eekhoud and Joris-Karl Huysmans are in the novel.

The beginnings of the modern movement, which was directed, in the first instance, against Philistinism, may be traced back to the group of bellicose students who were gathered together at the University of Louvain about 1880.[5] Some of them, among whom were Emile Verhaeren and Ernest van Dyk (the famous Wagner tenor) founded a magazine, _La Semaine des Etudiants,_ which was soon suppressed by the University authorities. Other students who later became famous were Iwan Gilkin and Albert Giraud; and Edmond Deman, who was to become Verhaeren's publisher and a maker of beautiful books. Another student, Max Waller, who, till his early death in 1889, was the imp of mischief in the literary world of Belgium, founded, in rivalry with _La Semaine,_ the magazine _Le Type_, which was also suppressed. Later on Max Waller founded, in 1882, at Brussels, together with Georges Eekhoud and Gilkin, _La Jeune Belgique_, a review to which all the young bloods contributed, making common cause until they divided into _verslibristes_ and Parnassians, after which the review was carried on, under the successive editorship of Waller, Gille, and Gilkin, as the organ of the French party ("l'art pour l'art et le culte de la forme"[6]). Other reviews which provided a battling-ground were _L'Art Moderne_[7] to which Verhaeren contributed, and _La Wallonie,_ which Albert Mockel founded at Liege in 1884.

The exuberant vitality of these students, though it often led them into extremes, laid the foundation of a literature which is in many respects the most remarkable of contemporary Europe. Now that Tolstoy is dead, Maeterlinck and Verhaeren stand at the head of the literature of the whole world; and they are, as Johannes Schlaf has maintained, the perfect types of the "new European." It is absurd to consider them as Frenchmen; they are as much the product of their country as Ibsen is of Norway.

Modern Belgium, "between ardent France and grave Germany," the focus of all the roads of Europe, is as rich in intellectual gifts as it is teeming with material wealth. "The vitality of the Belgians," says Stefan Zweig in his splendid book on Verhaeren, "is magnificent. In no other part of Europe is life lived with such intensity, such gaiety. In no other country as in Flanders is excess in sensuality and pleasure a function of strength. The Flemings must be seen in their sensual life, in the avidity they bring to it, in the conscious joy they feel in it, in the endurance they show. It was in orgies that Jordaens found the models of his pictures: in every kermesse, in every funeral feast you could find them to this very day. Statistics show us that Belgium stands at the head of Europe in its consumption of alcohol. Out of every two houses one is an inn. Every town, every village has its brewery, and the brewers are the richest traders in the country. Nowhere else are festivals so animated, so noisy, so unrestrained. Nowhere else is life so loved, and lived with such superabundance, at such fever-heat." It is a land that has conquered the sea, and Spain, and is still unspent, raging with greedy appetites of body and brain. Verhaeren has vaunted it in himself:

"Je suis le fils de cette race
Dont les cerveaux plus que les dents
Sont solides et sont ardents
Et sont voraces.
Je suis le fils de cette race
Tenace,
Qui veut, apres avoir voulu,
Encore, encore et encore plus."[8]

The greatest of all French poets, past and present, is Emile Verhaeren. He was born in 1855 at Saint Amand, a village on the Scheldt to the east of Antwerp. He has described the impressions of his childhood among the polders in his charming book _Les Tendresses premieres_ (1904), the processions of ships sailing, like a dream plumed with wind, down the river under the stars, the dikes, "la verte immensite des plaines et des plaines"; and in the superb symbolism of _Les Villages illusoires_ he has magnified the villagers at their trades. He was educated at the Jesuit school Sainte-Barbe in Ghent, with Georges Rodenbach for a schoolfellow. Then he studied law at Louvain, made some feint of practising at Brussels, and, in 1883, burst upon his countrymen with his audacious book _Les Flamandes_, the fruit of close study of Flemish _genre_-painting and the poetry of Maupassant. An indignant critic called him "the Raphael of filth"; but he rehabilitated himself by "_Les Moines_" (1886), sonorous poems mirroring life in a Flemish monastery, painting monks whose asceticism is as savage and voluptuous as the huge joy in life illustrated in _Les Flamandes._

These two books glow with health. But the poet had impaired his constitution by riotous living; and the trilogy which now followed, _Les Soirs_ (1887), _Les Debacles_ (1888), and _Les Flambeaux noirs_ (1890), form one long elegy of disease. These years, his "pathological period," were full of the blackest pessimism and despair. He was much in London at this time, in isolation all the more desperate as he could not speak English. He was fascinated by the atmosphere of the English capital, its immensity, its desolation, its fogs, identifying his own mind with all of it: "_O mon ame du soir, ce Londres noir qui traine en toi!_" "Je suis l'immensement perdu," he cries out in despair; he yearns for his brain to give way: "When shall I have the atrocious joy of seeing madness, nerve by nerve, attack my mind?" But the very keenness of his self-observation gradually brings him healing: a mastery of the body by the brain. This intense wrestling with disease is full of significance, and one of the lessons which Verhaeren has to teach is that new conditions of existence, the din and dust of great cities, the never-resting activity of modern brains, will create a new man whose nervous system will be able to bear the strain imposed upon it. And when one sees Verhaeren turning from self-torture to lose himself in the energy of the restlessly progressing world, one thinks of John Addington Symonds growing stronger over "Leaves of Grass." His recovery and reconciliation with life are symbolized in his poem _Saint George_, one of the collection _Les Apparus dans mes Chemins_ (1891).

In his first two books he had been a realist and a Parnassian. The volumes which follow are in _vers libres_, and they are, to a certain extent, symbolistic. _Les Villages illusoires_ (1894) is all symbolism: the ferryman is the stubborn artist with the green reed of hope between his teeth; the fishermen symbolize the selfish society of to-day; the ropemaker weaves the horizons of the future.

_Les Campagnes hallucinees_ (1893) describes the desolation of the country, deserted to glut the cities; _Les Villes tentaculaires_ (1895) is a cinematograph of the town, while the play _Les Aubes_ (1898) completes the trilogy, and prophesies the dawn of a better day after a cleansing with blood. In these three books contemporary life is visualized, reviled, condoned, explained, and reconciled with beauty. Poets (except Walt Whitman, whom Verhaeren continues) have turned their eyes away from the present to the past, and sung of rural quiet rather than of urban roar. When Henley's poem on the motor-car appeared, there was a cry of derision; but the only thing that was wrong with the poem was that it was not poetry. Verhaeren, however, has smitten poetry out of workshops, anvils, locomotives, girders, braziers, pavements, gin-shops, brothels, the Stock Exchange--out of all that is monstrous and ugly to those who look at material things, as Ruskin did, with the eyes of the past. The accepted ideal of beauty is Grecian; but to Verhaeren the beauty of a thing is not in its outward form, but in the idea that moves it. In Greece the athlete was beautiful; but strength to-day is in the nerves; to-day we see more beauty in a face moulded by mind than in the thews of a discus-thrower. Smoke is beautiful in the pictures of Whistler and Monet; the toil of grimy workmen is sublime in the sculpture of Constantin Meunier.[9] For Verhaeren, as Stefan Zweig says, "a thing is the more beautiful the more finality, will, power, energy it contains. The whole universe at the present moment is overheated; it is straining in throes of endeavour; our great towns are nothing but centres of multiplied energy; their machines are the expression of forces tamed and organized; their innumerable crowds are joined together in harmonious action. Thus to Verhaeren all things appear full of beauty. He loves our epoch because it does not disperse effort, but condenses it, because it is not scattered, but concentrated for action. All that has will, and an aim in view, man, machine, crowd, town, capital; all that vibrates, works, hammers, travels; all that bears in itself fire, impulse, electricity, and feeling--all this rings in his verse. Everything lives its minute; in this multiple gear there is no dust, no useless ornamentation; but everywhere is creation; the feeling of the future directs all action. The town is a living being."

Verhaeren knows the great cities of Europe. He has felt the spell of Hamburg, as well as of Hildesheim and of little towns in Spain. We have seen him during his period of depression isolated in London, and while in England he was fascinated by the reek of soot and tar in Liverpool and Glasgow. In London he would take a ticket to anywhere on "the underground," and roll along for hours; he wandered about the docks, and dreamed among the mummies in the British Museum. And though the town of his poems may be any town, it is no doubt, at the back of his mind, London.

In _Les Heures claires_ (1896) and _Les Heures d'apres-midi_ (1905), Verhaeren sings the "douce accalmie" of his wedded life. To translate some of the poems in these collections would be like forcing one's way into a sanctuary. As this:

"Tres doucement, plus doucement encore,
Berce ma tete entre tes bras,
Mon front fievreux et mes yeux las;
Tres doucement, plus doucement encore,
Baise mes levres, et dis-moi
Ces mots plus doux a chaque aurore,
Quand me les dit ta voix
Et que tu t'es donnee, et que je t'aime encore."

In another trilogy _Toute la Flandre_ (_Les Tendresses premieres_, 1904; _La Guirlande des Dunes_, 1907; _Les Heros_, 1908) he sings his native province. Of his plays, _Le Cloitre_, in the translation of Osman Edwards, was staged, with honour and glory to all concerned, by the Gaiety Theatre in Manchester in 1910.

The reputation of Verhaeren's schoolfellow, Georges Rodenbach (1855-98), has waned considerably since his death. He trails such weary Alexandrines as:

"Aux heures du soir morne ou l'on voudrait mourir,
Ou l'on se sent le coeur trop seul, l'ame trop lasse,
Quel rafraichissement de se voir dans la glace."

Verhaeren and Rodenbach were followed on the benches of the College Sainte-Barbe at Ghent by Charles van Lerberghe, Maurice Maeterlinck, and Gregoire Le Roy. Van Lerberghe's first work, _Les Flaireurs_ (1889), is in a style which is said to have suggested that of Maeterlinck's first plays. His comedy _Pan_ (1906) is full of devilment. In his lyric verse there is no sediment; all is clear and rippling like a beck dancing down a hill-side in the sunshine of summer dawn. If poetry is music, he is a poet unparalleled. He sings

"Avec des mots
Si frais, si virginaux,
Avec des mots si purs,
Qu'ils tremblent dans l'azur,
Et semblent dits,
Pour la premiere fois au paradis."

What a gem is this poem:--

Elle dort dans l'ombre des branches,
Parmi les fleurs du bel ete.
Une fleur au soleil se penche....
N'est ce pas un cygne enchante?

Elle dort doucement et songe.
Son sein respire lentement.
Vers son sein nu la fleur allonge
Son long col frele et vacillant.

Et sans qu'elle s'en effarouche,
La longue, pale fleur a mis,
Silencieusement, sa bouche
Autour du bean sein endormi.

"Ce que nous enseigne Charles van Lerberghe," says Albert Mockel in his masterly book on his friend, "c'est la puissance de la grace. Le charme de ses vers est unique; le sentiment dont ils nous penetrent a une sorte de plenitude heureuse qui console le coeur en appelant l'ame vers la clarte. Une onde invisible nous rafraichit, nous pacifie ... Mais la force des plus grands peut seule se flechir a une pareille douceur, et il faut la surete d'un incomparable artiste pour faire de la parole ecrite cette chose lumineuse et imponderable qui semble autour de nous comme une poussiere d'or suspendue."

It is scarcely necessary to enter into details here about Maeterlinck; he needs no introduction to English readers. He has only published one volume of lyrics, _Serres Chaudes_ (1889), which is now printed with the fifteen songs he wrote later. In a music laden with sleep rise the faint, forced lilies of a super-sensitive soul, looking through glass darkly at a world whose contradictions seem irreconcilable. Verhaeren has characterized these poems as follows: "C'etait d'une inattendue angoisse, d'une extraordinaire et infinie tristesse, d'une plainte profonde et simple sortie de l'instinct scelle au fond de nous-memes. Cela ne s'expliquait pas, mais cela perforait le fond de notre ame et trouvait sa justification dans tout l'inexplicable et dans tout l'inconnu. L'inconscient ou plutot la subconscience y reconnaissait son langage, ou plutot son balbutiement...."

Gregoire Le Roy has been an electrician, and is now Librarian of the _Academie Royale des Beaux-Arts_ at Brussels. He is the poet of retrospection, as Maeterlinck is the poet of introspection. His heart "pleure d'autrefois." He is the hermit bowed down by silver hair, bending at eventide over the embers of the past, visited by weird guests draped with legend. The weft of his verse is torn by translation, it cannot be grasped, it is wafted through shadows.

Max Elskamp is a poet who reminds one that Mariolatry is Minnesong. There is no reason why the devout should not be edified by his poems, but his intention is rather to give a subtle idealization of Flemish life. Those who know Flemish painting will easily read themselves into the enchanting version of Flanders that he gives us, a Flanders how different to that of Verhaeren and yet how equally true!

"Et c'est alors un pays d'ailes
Aux hirondelles,
Flandres des tours
Et de naif et bon sejour;
Et c'est alors un pays d'ailes
Et tout d'amour."

Thomas Braun, Victor Kinon, and Georges Ramaekers are fervent Roman Catholics. Braun's _Livre des Benedictions_ is a beautifully printed book illustrated by the quaint woodcuts of his brother, who is a Benedictine monk. It is a thoroughly Flemish book; but a volume of verse which he has just published, _J'ai plie le genou_ (published by Deman), is Walloon in feeling. His other volume, _Philatelie_ (Bibliotheque de l'Occident, Paris, 1910) is poetry for stamp-collectors! Braun and Kinon are bucolic poets, somewhat in the manner of the French poet Francis Jammes, who aims at uncompromising fidelity to nature and the utmost simplicity of diction. But part of Kinon's work is in the style of Max Elskamp, fascinating poetry concerning pilgrimages,[10] and the devotional life of Flanders. Ramaekers, the editor of _Le Catholique,_ is inspired "par la vision si riante et si forte du Brabant jovial, intime, et monastique." _Le Chant des Trois Regnes_ is a forest of mysticism. The "Three Reigns" are those of the Father = the cult of minerals; the Son = of plants; the Holy Ghost = of Love. Some of the poems would delight an architect. His knowledge of paintings appears equally well in his other volume of verse, _Les Saisons mystiques_ (Librairie moderne, Brussels, 1910).

Andre Fontainas is a symbolist of the symbolists. Mallarme himself could not have bettered the following exciting sonnet:

Le givre: vivre libre en l'ire de l'hiver,
Rumeur qui se retrait au regard d'une vitre
Ou, peut-etre, fremit ephemere l'elytre
De tel vol ou d'un souffle epais de menu-vair.
Le ciel gris s'est, fanfare! a soi-meme entr'ouvert:
N'est-ce pas qu'y ruisselle au front morne une mitre?
Non! senile noblesse ou nul n'elude un titre
A se mentir moins vil que ne rampe le ver.
L'heure suit l'heure encore, aucune n'est la seule:
Pareille a soi, voici venir qui l'enlinceule
Pour brusque naitre d'elle et pour mourir soudain.
Un chardon bleu, pas meme, au suaire, ni cirse
Offrant, reve chetif et dedain du jardin,
Ne fut-ce qu'une epine a s'en former un thyrse.

But the great mass of his poetry is perfectly intelligible. He is a romanticist, but in a new sense; for whereas the old romanticists turned from the sordid present to the motley middle ages and the choral pomp of Rome, Fontainas haunts the labyrinths of his soul, and projects his conscience beyond the bounds of space and time. In Fontainas, as in Gerardy, knights ride through pathless forests, but these are not the knights of Spenser. The _Faery Queen_ is a record of events in the outer world; Fontainas is a _chevalier errant_ in the inner world of the spirit, and his castles are only settling-places for the dove of thought winging out of the unknown.

Iwan Gilkin and Albert Giraud are Satanists. Gilkin's _La Nuit_, "une vision terrifiante des turpitudes humaines," is the most interesting book in Baudelaire's style since Baudelaire. He began it with the intention of continuing his pilgrimage in two following books through Purgatory and Paradise; but, as he warns his readers in the preface to _La Nuit: This is Hell!_ Gilkin seems to have had no aptitude for Purgatory and Paradise after Hell; at all events, his following works have nothing to make an Englishman blush. _Le Cerisier Fleuri_ (1899) is a collection of verse in the classical style; but Gilkin has since given his best work to the drama: _Promethee_ (1899), _Etudiants russes_ (1906), _Savonarole_ (1906). _Jonas_ (1900) is a satire predicting the conquest of Europe by Asia.

Albert Giraud is undoubtedly a poet of high rank. His colouring is marvellous. Above all, he is a very personal poet; one can always hear the beating of his heart--"A maint endroit le sentiment mal contenu creve l'enveloppe de serenite."[11] He is a pessimist and a Baudelairian: "Il se plait," says Desire Horrent, "a remuer le fond vaseux des ames, a gouter le charme morbide des voluptes rares et raffinees."

Albert Mockel is one of those very rare cases in which a good critic is at the same time a good poet. As a critic[12] he has probably no rival except Remy de Gourmont. His hall-mark is subtlety; but his learning, too, makes one gasp. (He might, no doubt, have been a professor if he had not been so brilliant). His poetry is philosophy; and the wonderful thing is that it should be such poetry. It is as light as a breeze, and like a deep river that shows its pebbles. He has in preparation a book of verse, _La Flamme Immortelle_, which will be a magnificent realization of his doctrine of _Aspiration._ Verhaeren interprets the outer world, Mockel the inner world as reflected in the outer world: for existence is double, form and shadow. Mockel has written, too, a child's story-book, _Contes pour les enfants d'hier_[13] which should not be given to children.

Paul Gerardy is a well-known German poet as well as a French one. He belongs to the school of Stefan George.

In Georges Marlow's poetry the prevailing note is refinement. He has written little, but what he has written is of the first water. Some of the verse in his collection _L'Ame en Exil_ is like Brussels lace:

Aline, au fil de l'eau tremblante
Ou les tourelles refletees
Parlent d'une ville noyee,
Pourquoi baigner tes mains dolentes!

Princesse trop frele surgie
D'un recueil de miniatures,
Gracile fee aux levres pures
Du vain prestige des magies,

Ta peine etrange quelle est-elle
Pour qu'en cette onde puerile
Mirant ta candeur infantile
Tu songes aux fleurs immortelles

Du jardin vague ou les ephebes
Nimbes d'equivoques lueurs,
Sur l'autel d'or de la langueur
Immolent l'ange de leurs reves?

Fernand Severin, who is lecturer in French literature at the University of Ghent, is a poet of great charm. His diction is apparently that of Racine, but in substance he is essentially modern. "Virginal" is the epithet the French critics apply to him, and it describes his chaste, transparent poetry very well. "Tout y est en nuances, mysterieusement fuyantes et fondues" (Victor Kinon). He dreams:

"les mains pleines de roses
Et le coeur enlace de longs rameaux de lys."

He is full of languor:

"Car mes reves sont las comme de blancs oiseaux
En qui verse l'ennui de l'azur et des eaux
Le supreme desir de dormir sur les greves."

Isi-Collin's _La Vallee heureuse_ is full of fine things. In such a poem as _La Mort d'Ophelie_ the influence of pre-Raphaelite paintings may be discerned. There is Wordsworthianism in his verse (especially _Le Patre_), as there is in Severin's; not a voluntary absorption into the outer world, but a passing reflection of it in the inner being; no direct message, but a statement of a state.

The only poetess in our collection is Jean Dominique. Besides _L'Anemone des Mers_ she has published _La Gaule Blanche_ and _L'Aile Mouillee_ (Mercure de France, 1903 and 1909). Her verse is exquisitely feminine, shimmering like shot silk, intimately personal, and perfect in form. "She notes the very shadow that roses cast on her soul." She has written poems which are worthy of Sappho, as that which begins:

"Dans la chaleur muette le ciel lisse ses plumes
Comme un grand epervier aux ailes floconneuses;
Mais ce soir, l'oiseau d'or entrave dans les brumes,
Blotti contre la terre humble et delicieuse,
Dormira sur le coeur des femmes amoureuses."

Georges Rency's Pegasus was a delicate steed with iridescent blue wings when he took it out into the shadows, and the moonlights, and the dawns, and recorded its flights on excellent paper. Since then it seems to have died of inanition, but he himself has produced a robust body of novels and criticism.

As to Sylvain Bonmariage, he is a prodigy. He is twenty-four years of age, and he has written twelve books. Every one of his plays has seen the footlights. "Precoce a epouvanter le diable et candide a ravir les saints," is Albert Giraud's description of him.

Our collection does not exhaust the poetry of Belgium. Perhaps no poem we have selected has so good a chance of immortality as a snatch of song by Leon Montenaeken:

La vie est vaine:
Un peu d'amour,
Un peu de haine....
Et puis--bonjour!

La vie est breve:
Un peu d'espoir,
Un peu de reve ...
Et puis--bonsoir!

J. BITHELL.

_April 1911._

[1] Charles van Lerberghe was directly inspired by Rossetti and Burne-Jones. Verhaeren has written much art criticism. Fontainas, who has translated Keats, and Milton's _Samson Agonistes_ and _Comus_, is a historian of painting (_Histoire de la Peinture francaise au xixeme siecle 1801-1900_, Mercure de France, 1906). Max Elskamp illustrates his own books with quaint, mediaeval woodcuts; see, especially, his _Alphabet de Notre Dame la Vierge_ (Antwerp, 1901). Mockel has written a study of Victor Rousseau (1905). Le Roy is an amateur painter.

[2] Verhaeren heard Wagner's _Walkuere_ twenty times running. Mockel is a learned musician; of his two volumes of verse _Chantefable un peu naive_ and _Clartes_ contain musical notations of rhythms. Gilkin found it difficult to decide whether to be a musician or a poet.

[3] Verhaeren, who is a Fleming _pur sang_, and who was brought up in an exclusively Flemish-speaking district, knows practically no Flemish. Maeterlinck, on the other hand, might have written equally well in Flemish.

[4] See Georges Rency, _Physionomies litteraires_, pp. 120-122.

[5] See Gilkin, _Origines estudiantines de la Jeune Belgique._

[6] Gilkin, _Quinze annees de litterature_.

[7] Founded by the lawyer Edmond Picard, who discovered "l'ame belge." He advocated a literature which should be specifically Belgian.

[8] "Ma race," Les Forces tumultueuses.

[9] Stefan Zweig. _Emile Verhaeren_.

[10] "La Belgique sait mieux que toute autre jouer dans la paille avec l'enfant de Bethleem." (Thomas Braun.)

[11] Gregoire Le Roy, _Le Masque_, May 1910.

[12] _Propos de litterature_,1894; _Emile Verhaeren_, 1895; _Stephane Mallarme. Un Heros_. Mercure de France, 1899; _Charles van Lerberghe_, Mercure de France, 1901.

[13] Mercure de France (1908).

Contemporary Belgian Poetry.

SYLVAIN BONMARIAGE.

1887--.

/$
AUTUMN EVENING IN THE ORCHARD.

In the monotonous orchard alley glints
The languid sun that yet is loth to leave
This unripe, fascinating autumn eve,
And draws a pastel with faint, feminine tints.

Spite of the great gold fruits around us strown,
Of the last freshly-opened roses, which
But now we gathered, spite of all the rich
Odour filling the dusk from hay new-mown,

Of all the ripe, warm, naked fruit thou art
I covet nothing but the savour, while
Thou liest in the grass there with a smile,
Tormenting with thy curious eyes my heart.

YOU WHOM I LOVE IN SILENCE.

You whom I love in silence, as I must,
Fain had I been in olden tournament
To shiver lances for your eyes' content,
Making full many a baron bite the dust.

Or rather I had been that favoured page
Who trained your hounds and falcons that he might
After you down the valley, o'er the height
Go galloping in eager vassalage.

I might have heard my lord solicit bliss,
And swear to you his vehement promises;
And gone to mass with you at dewy prime;

And in the cool of evenings I, to woo
The smile of your loved lips, had sung to you
The secret love of lovers of old time.
$/

THOMAS BRAUN.

1876--.

THE BENEDICTION OF THE NUPTIAL RING.

"_Ut quae cum gestaverit fidelitatem integram suo sponso tenens
in mutua caritate vivat._"

Almighty God, bless now the ring of gold
Which bride and bridegroom shall together hold!
They whom fresh water gave to You are now
United in You by the marriage vow.
The ring is of a heavy, beaten ore,
And yet it shall not make the finger sore.
But easefully be carried day and night,
Because its secret spirit makes it light.
Its perfect circle sinks into the skin,
Nor hurts it, and the phalanx growing thin
Under its pressure moulds itself ere long,
Yet keeps its agile grace and still is strong.
So love, which in this symbol lies, with no
Beginning more nor ending here below,
Shall, if You bless it, Lord, like gold resist,
And never show decay, nor flaw, nor twist,
And be so light, though solid, that the soul,
A composite yet indivisible whole,
Shall keep its tender impress to the last,
And never know the bonds that bind it fast.

THE BENEDICTION OF WINE.

"_Ut vinum cor hominis laetifloet._"

Lord, You who heard the prayer of Your divine
Mother, and gave Your guests that Cana wine,
Deign now to bless as well the vintage new,
Which cheers the heart of those who pray to you.
The breeze blew warm upon the flowering shoot,
And the sky coloured all the round, green fruit,
Which, guarded from oidium and lice,
Thrushes, phylloxera, and from dormice,
Ripened as You, O Lord, would have it be.
The tendril curled around the sapling tree,
And soon the shoots bent under sun-blue sheaves
With which September loads the crackling leaves.
Over the winepress sides the juice has run,
And, heavily fermenting, cracked the tun.
O Lord, we dedicate to You this wine,
Wherein is pent the spirit of the Rhine;
We vow to You the vintages of France,
Of the Moselle, Black Forest, of Byzance;
Cyprus, Marsala, Malaga, and Tent,
Malmsey, and Shiraz of the Orient;
That of the Gold Isles scented by the sea,
Sherry, Tokay, Thetalassomene;
Nectar of bishops and of kings, champagne;
The blue wine from the hill-sides of Suresnes;
The sour, white wine of Huy; Chateau Margaux,
Shipped to Your abbots world-wide from Bordeaux;
Oporto's wine that drives the fever out,
And gave to English statesmen rest and gout;
Lacryma Christi, Chateauneuf of Popes,
Grown, O good Lord, upon Avignon's slopes;
Whether in skins or bottles; those you quaff
With ceremonial face or lips that laugh;
Keep them still clear when cobwebs round them grow,
To make all world-sick hearts leap up and glow,
To lighten minds that carking cares oppress,
And yet not dimming them with drunkenness;
Put into them the vigour which sustains
Muscles grown flabby; and along the veins
Let them regenerate impoverished blood;
And bless the privileged pure wine and good,
Whose common, fragile colour, still unspiced,
Suddenly ceasing to be wine, O Christ,
Soon as the blest, transmuting word is said,
Perpetuates Your blood for sinners shed.

THE BENEDICTION OF THE CHEESES.

"_Dignare sanctificare hanc creaturam casei quam ex adipe
animalium producere dignatus es._"

When from the void, good Lord, this earth You raised,
You made vast pasture-lands where cattle grazed,
Where shepherds led their flocks, and shore their fleeces,
And scraped their hides and cut them into pieces,
When they had eaten all their nobler flesh,
Which with earth's virgin odour still was fresh.
O'er Herve's plateaux our cattle pass, and browse
The ripe grass which the mist of summer bows,
And over which the scents of forests stream.
They give us butter, curds, and milk, and cream.
God of the fields, Your cheeses bless to-day,
For which Your thankful people kneel and pray.
Let them be fat or light, with onions blent,
Shallots, brine, pepper, honey; whether scent
Of sheep or fields is in them, in the yard
Let them, good Lord, at dawn be beaten hard;
And let their edges take on silvery shades
Under the most red hands of dairymaids;
And, round and greenish, let them go to town
Weighing the shepherd's folding mantle down;
Whether from Parma or from Jura heights,
Kneaded by august hands of Carmelites,
Stamped with the mitre of a proud abbess,
Flowered with the fragrance of the grass of Bresse,
From Brie, hills of the Vosges, or Holland's plain,
From Roquefort, Gorgonzola, or from Spain!
Bless them, good Lord! Bless Stilton's royal fare,
Red Cheshire, and the tearful, cream Gruyere!
Bless Kantercaas, and bless the Mayence round,
Where aniseed and other grains are found;
Bless Edam, Pottekees, and Gouda then,
And those that we salute with "Sir," like men.

ISI-COLLIN.

1878--.

TO THE MUSE.

Skilful the rune of symbols to unravel,
And mute avowals hearkened unawares,
Before the light from lips of flowers fares
With chosen petals I have strown the gravel.

She I awaited came not to the lawn,
And, solitary, I have chased all night
The lilac's and the lily's breath in flight,
And drunk it deeply in the brimful dawn.

Upon the sand these flowers that I have strown
My foot has crushed them down with cruel force,
And I am kneeling near the mirroring source,
Where I have sought her mouth and kissed mine own.

But now I know, and sing with fire renewed
Thy mercy, and thy beauty, and thy youth
Eternal, and I love thee without ruth,
Whom Sappho the divine and Virgil wooed.

I have all odours to perfume thee here,
And dyes for mouth and eyes, and I will make
Thy looks more luminous, and deep, and clear
Than the stainless azure bathing in this lake.

Come with thy too red lips and painted eyes!
My senses wait for thee in these bright bowers,
Where they are flowering with the soul of flowers,
O mother of fables and of lyric lies,

O courtesan! Come where these willows wave,
Lie by the water, I would have thee bare,
With nothing round thine ample shoulders save
All the sun's gold vibrating in thy hair.

A DREAM.

Dream of the far hours when
We were exiled beyond the pale
Of our happiness; draw again
Over our love that ancient veil.

Offer your lips to the evening breeze
That sings among the branches and passes,
Lay back your head on my knees,
Where the river the willow glasses.
Rest in my hands your head
Tired with the weight of the autumn in its tresses red,
And dream!

(A fabulous sunset bleeds
In the calm water wherein,
Among the reeds,
Our double shadow grows thin,
Bathed in the sunset's red,
And the radiant gold of your head.)

Dream of your virginal spirit's plight,
When I opened your robe in our wedding night.

(The noise of a wing that lags
Dies in the waterflags.
And the shadows which descend
With the afterglow,
Mysterious and slow,
Stay on the bank and o'er the waters bend
Their faces of silence.)

Dream of our love, of our joys,
And in the shadow sing them low;
At the rim of your naked lips
My voice shall ambush your voice.

(The moonbeams slow and white
Linger on the forest tops,
Fall and glide on the river they light,
And now a veil of radiance drops
On our protecting willow....)

Dream, this is the hour of snow.

JEAN DOMINIQUE.

1873--.

THOU WHOM THE SUMMER CROSSES, AS A FAWN.

Thou whom the summer crosses, as a fawn,
Red in the sun, through forest alleys springs,
My soul with the deep shadows round thee drawn,
Hast thou not seen the sad, blonde swarm of bees
Pass hanging on the eddies of the breeze,
Bearing on millions of exiguous wings
A little motionless and gilded queen?...

Hast thou not felt the orphan grace that starts
To life with life in any beast, and glows,
Tormented with enchantment, in the hearts
Of delicate fawns and simple eyes of does?...

My sylvan soul, so full of nests and warm,
Remembering thy flown birds with pangs how keen,
Shalt thou not ever, in parched summer's breath,
Hang like a humming heart and keep the swarm
Of gilded bees bearing their golden queen
Upon thine orphan heart more sad than death?...

And shalt thou ever of ecstatic nights,
And of the royal Summer crossing earth,
Know but the printed foot in amorous flights
Of the red fawn, and shadow-dappled mirth?...

Soul whom the Winter too shall cross ere long,
And, after, Passion's Spring as bindweeds strong,
More sad than death shall thou not ever seize
This little orphan, golden queen, in state
Borne round the world upon the eddying breeze
By many a thousand longings that vibrate?...

THE LEGEND OF SAINT URSULA.

_Painted by Carpaccio._

The slender Ursula has decked her hair,
And her pale visage, and her trailing gown
With odorous collars and with shining pearls;
Her tapering hand the precious burden holds
Of a sheaf of delicately broken folds;
Her fragile temple bears the seal of God.

There comes to meet her, o'er the port's green wave,
A gallant pagan prince clad with gold hair,
And grace and love, and loveliness suave.
The maiden and the youth have mouths so grave,
That in the sleeping air on the lagoon
Already seem the harps of death to swoon....

Ursula, virgin, humble as blonde thatch,
Is earnest, and in costly raiment straight,
And like a kingdom taketh her the prince....
But she already knows love there is none!

But she already knows another youth,
The fairest archer of a lordly race,
Awaits her at another ocean's rim
To free her sovran soul to fly to God....

And yet she cometh, with her exquisite neck
Beaten by tresses garlanded with pearls,
And the golden youth who loves her with sad cheer
Hearkens approaching nigh his trembling heart,
Following her silent step, a host of wings!...

THE SOUL'S PROMISE.

If you can see my soul within my eyes,
I will be softer than a bed of down
For your fatigue to sigh in and to swoon;
I will be kinder to you and more sweet
Than after vain adieux returning soon,
And tenderer than a sky bedimmed with doves!

Ah! if you feel my heart rise in my eyes,
Like the sick perfume of the autumn rose,
If you will enter on my spirit's waste,
Upon whose stones no foot but yours shall sound,
If you will love my visions and my vows,
I will be more your kin than all your own!

Upon my soul's wild thyme and moss, and on
Its bare stones where the sun is wont to dance,
And in its wind with fire and solace laden,
In the whole desert of my crimson love,
I will immerse you in my honeycombs.

Ah! can you gaze into my blinding soul,
And know my heart has leapt into my eyes,
As the sling sends after the singing bird
A stone at the mysterious welkin thrown?...

If you will scan the desert of mine eyes,
O you will see what suffering immense,
And what vast joy and silence how divine,
When, from my soul's height I shall bear you at,
We shall feel rise in us the wondrous wave
Of scents of roses and the falling night!...

A SECRET.

I will put my two hands on my mouth, to hush
The words that, when I see you, to it rush.

I will put my two hands on mine eyes, lest you
Should in them find what I were fain you knew.

I will put them on my bosom, to conceal
That which might seem the desperate heart's appeal.

And I will put them gently into yours,
My two hands sick with grief that long endures....

And they shall come full of their tenderness,
Most silently, and even with no caress,

With the whole burden of a secret broken,
Of which my mouth, eyes, heart had gladly spoken.

Tired of being empty they to you shall come,
Heavy with sadness, sad with being dumb;

So desolate, discouraged, pale and frail,
That you may bend, perhaps, and see they ail!...

MAX ELSKAMP.

1862--.

OF EVENING.

All at the heart of a far domain,
With those to whom our hearts do strain,
My Truelove weeps for me, distraught
By my death the week has wrought.
My heart's Beloved grieveth sore,
And plunges her two hands like flowers
Into her eyes whose sorrow showers,
My heart's Beloved grieveth sore.

All at the heart of a far domain,
Unto her feet her skates she ties,
Feeling that in her heart is ice,
Far unto me her tired feet strain;
My Truelove hangs to the Chapel pane,
That gazes over all the plain,
With rings, and salt, and dry bread, my
Wretched soul that will not die.

All at the heart of a far domain,
My Truelove never will weep again
The festivals the seasons bring,
With family rings on fingers twain;
My Love has seen me promising,
Like a saint, to spirits pure
A Sunday that shall aye endure,
And all at the heart of a far domain.

FULL OF GRACE.

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 ass 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 ships

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 peacock'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,
Shining 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 shimmering 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 ships 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 shine;

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 passes by.

Lo! endless the pleasure is,
May returned, and maladies

Borne to horizons blue,
On vessels simple and true,

Far away, on the sea so far
Hardly seen, or like dots they are.

Now, under trees, the time glides
In the street where my life abides;

Mary of meek workers, steep
In the May-wood my head in the sleep

And the rest that my good tools have earned;
Sound mind in a sound body urned,

In a Mary-month more splendid,
Because all my task is ended.

TO THE EYES.

Now, sky of azure
On houses rosy,
Like a child of Flanders preach
The simple religion I teach,
Like a sky of azure
On houses rosy;

Lo, to the vexed
I bring these roses,
When their memory to the islands reaches,
The voices that my gospel preaches,
Like the gladsome text
A child's talk glozes.

You people happy
With very little:
You women and men of my city,
And of all my moments of pity,
Be happy
With very little;

For letters blue
On pages rosy,
This is all the book that I read you,
Unto your pleasaunce to lead you,
In a country blue
Houses rosy.

TO THE MOUTH.

For, you my brothers and sisters,
With me in my bark you shall go,
And my cousins, the fishers, shall show
Where the fin of the shoaled fishes glisters,

Whose tides the bow-nets heap,
Till the baskets cry out, days and days,
Darkening the blue ocean's face,
As in a path crowded sheep.

You shall see my nets all swell,
And St. Peter helping the fishes
Which for the Fridays he wishes,
Sole, flounder, mackerel.

And St. John the Evangelist
Lending a hand with the sheets,
At the low ebb of autumn heats,
When haddocks come, says the mist.

And our women with tucked-up sleeves,
Like banquets on your tables;
And miracles, and fables
To tell in the holy eves.

FOR THE EAR.

Then nearer and nearer yet
To the sea in a golden fret,

On the dikes where the houses end,
The trees to the sea-breeze that bend;

With their baptismal names anchored here,
In the rivers to which they are dear,

The vessels my harbour loves best,
Clustered, a choir, at their rest.

Now in their festivity,
I salute you, _Anna-Marie,_

Who seem in your white sails to bear
Cherubs that flit through the air;

And with joy that I scarcely can speak
I see you again, _Angelique,_

You with no shrouds on your mast,
Safe returned from Iceland at last.

But now, like _Gabrielle_, sing
Your new sails smooth as a wing,

And weep no more, _Madeleine,_
For your nets you have lost on the main,

Since all are pardoned, even
The wind, for kisses given,

So that in kisses and glee
These visiting billows may be

Content with the homage they pay,
High the sea, to sing the May.

TO-DAY IS THE DAY OF REST, THE SABBATH.

To-day is the day of rest, the Sabbath,
A morning of sunshine, and of bees,
And of birds in the garden trees,
To-day is the day of rest, the Sabbath;

The children are in their white dresses,
Towns are gleaming through the azure haze,
This is Flanders with poplar-shaded ways,
And the sea the yellow dunes caresses.

To-day is the day of all the angels:
Michael with his swallows twittering,
Gabriel with his wings all glittering,
To-day is the day of all the angels;

Then, people here with happy faces,
All the people of my country, who
Departed one by one, two by two,
To look at life in blue distant places;

To-day is the day of rest, the Sabbath--
The miller is sleeping in the mill--
To-day is the day of rest, the Sabbath,
And my song shall now be still.

MARY, SHED YOUR HAIR.

Mary, shed Your hair, for lo!
Here the azure cherubs blow,

And Jesus wakes upon Your breast;
Where His rosy fingers rest;

And golden angels lay their chins
Upon their breathing violins.

Now morning in the meads is green,
And, Mary, look at Life's demesne:

How infinitely sweet it seems,
From the forests and the streams

To roofs that cluster like an isle;
And, Mary, see Your cities smile

Happy as any child at play,
While from spires and steeples they

Proclaim the simple Gospel peace
With their showering melodies

From the gold dawn to the sunset sky,
Greeted, Mary of Houses, by

The men of Flanders loving still
The brown, centennial earth they till.

And sing now, all ye merry men
Who plough the glebe, sing once again

Your Flanders sweet to larks that sing
With gladsome voices concerting,

And sail afar, ye ships that glass
Your flags in billows green as grass,

For Jesus holds His hands above,
Mary, this festival of love

Made by the sky for summer's birth,
With silk and velvet covering earth.

AND MARY READS A GOSPEL-PAGE.

And Mary reads a Gospel-page,
With folded hands in the silent hours,
And Mary reads a Gospel-page,
Where the meadow sings with flowers,

And all the flowers that star the ground
In the far emerald of the grass,
Tell her how sweet a life they pass,
With simple words of dulcet sound.

And now the angels in the cloud,
And the birds too in chorus sing,
While the beasts graze, with foreheads bowed,
The plants of scented blossoming;

And Mary reads a Gospel-page,
The pealing hours she overhears,
Forgets the time, and all the years,
For Mary reads a Gospel-page;

And masons building cities go
Homeward in the evening hours,
And, cocks of gold on belfry towers,
Clouds and breezes pass and blow.

AND WHETHER IN GRAY OR IN BLACK COPE.

And whether in gray or in black cope,--
Spider of the eve, good hope,--

Smoke ye roofs, and tables swell
With meats to mouths delectable;

And while the kitchen smoke upcurls,
Kiss and kiss, you boys and girls!

Night, the women, where they sit,
Can no longer see to knit;

Now, like loving fingers linking,
Work is done and sleep is blinking,

As balm on pious spirits drips,
All tearful eyes, all praying lips,

And straw to beasts, to mankind beds
Of solace for their weary heads.

Good-night! and men and women cross
Arms on your souls, or hearts that toss.

And in your dreams of white or blue,
Servants near the children you;

And peace now all your life, you trees,
Mills, and roofs, and brooks, and leas,

And rest you toilers all, between
The woollen soft, the linen clean,

And Christs forgotten in the cold,
And Magdalenes within the fold,

And Heaven far as sees the eye,
At the four corners of the sky.

ANDRE FONTAINAS.

1865--.

HER VOICE.

O voice vibrating like the song of birds,
O frail, sonorous voice wherein upwells
Laughter more bright than ring of wedding bells,
I listen to her voice more than her words.

Soul of old rebecs, spirit of harpsichords,
Within her voice your soft inflection dwells;
Blisses of love some ancient viol tells,
Kiss snatched by lips that swift lips turn towards.

Her voice is sweetness of chaste dreams, the scent
Of iris, cinnamon, and incense blent,
A music drunk, a folded mountain's calm;

It is within me made of living sun,
Of luminous pride and rhythms vermilion;
It is the purest, the most dazzling psalm.

COPHETUA.

With right arm on the open casement rim,
The negro King Cophetua, with sad mien,
And eyes that do not see, looks at the green
Autumnal ocean rolling under him.