Contemporary Belgian Poetry / Selected and Translated by Jethro Bithell

by Unknown

CHARLES VAN LERBERGHE.

1861-1907.

ERRANT SYMPATHY.
From some unknown horizon,
Wafted from far away,
Fraternal sympathy flies on
The scented breath of the May.
Now dreamers in cloudland turrets,
And maidens ripe with the time,
Up the white steps of their spirits
Feel loves invisible climb.
They know not from what glances,
In the pensive peace of the hour,
There are unknown lips in their fancies
Opening with theirs in flower.
So keen and kind the bliss is,
That their foreheads, younger made
By these intangible kisses,
Guard dreams that never fade.
THE GARDEN INCLOSED.
Fulcite me floribus.
Dear is thy bandage, Love,
To my heavy lids that it closes;
It weighs like the sweet burden of
Sunshine on frail, white roses.
I walk as to voices that call,
I seem over waters to hover,
And every wave, like a lover,
Folds round my feet as they fall.
Who has unloosened my tresses,
As through the dark places I came?
Girdled with unseen caresses,
I plunge into billows of flame.
My lips, where my soul is crooning,
Open in rapt desire,
Like a burning blossom swooning
Over a river on fire.
* * * * * * * * *
Dormis et cor meum vigilat.
My hands lie for my breasts to soothe,
Of playing and of distaffs tired;
My white hands, my hands desired,
Seem asleep on waters smooth.
Far from futile, waste repining,
On this my beauty's throne,
Frail, calm, gentle Queens reclining,
My royal hands dream of their own.
And while mine eyes are closed, and still is
The golden hair my breast that robes,
I am the virgin holding lilies,
I am the infant holding globes.
* * * * * * * * *
Si floruit vinea.
In mulberry time they sang my lips that yield
To keen caresses,
And, like the rain upon the summer field,
My long, warm tresses.
In time of vintaging they sang mine eyes,
Mine eyes half-closed,
Veiled by tired lids and lashes unreposed,
Like autumn skies.
I have all gleams and savours, I am supple
As a bindweed in hedgerow bowers,
My breasts are curved as flames are, or a couple
Of sister flowers.
* * * * * * * * *
Ego dilecto meo et dilectus meus mihi.
When thou dost plunge into mine eyes thine eyes,
I am all within mine eyes.
When thy mouth unties my mouth,
My love is nothing save my mouth.
When thy fingers lightly touch my hair,
I am not if it be not there.
When they touch my breasts at any time,
Like a sudden fire to them I climb.
Is it this which is to thee most dear?
Here my soul is, all my life is here.
* * * * * * * * *
In a perfume of white roses
She sits, dream fast;
And the shadow is beautiful as though an angel there
were glassed.
The gloam descends, the grove reposes;
The leaves and branches through
On the gold Paradise is opening one of blue.
A last faint wave breaks on the darkening shore.
A voice that sang just now is murmuring.
A murmuring breath is breathing ... now no more.
In the silence petals fall....
* * * * * * * * *
The angel of the morning star came down
Into her garden, and he spake to her:
"Come with me, I will show thee many a lake,
Valleys delightful, secret forest bowers,
Where still, in other dreams than ours,
The subtle spirits wake
Of the earth."
She stretched her arms, with laughter
Looking between her lashes on
The angel flaming in the sun,
And, when he moved, in silence followed after.
And while they wandered to the groves of shade
The Angel round her laid
His arm, and set
Among her bright hair longer than his wings
The flowers he gathered dewy wet
Upon the branches over her.
THE TEMPTATION.
Shapes that coiled in the woods and waters,
Glittering sons and radiant daughters.
—D.G. ROSSETTI.
A silence softened the declining day,
A moan, and then a love-sigh died away.
Apples were falling one by one between
The grasses warm and shadows emerald green.
The sun sank down from branch to branch; a bird
Singing among the stirless leaves was heard.
A scent of soft and swooning blossoms strayed,
Like a slow sea-wave, through the deepening shade.
And, to hear better her who comes, with bent
Eyes, as in dream, and heart to meet her sent,
By paths where never sound the silence jars,
Voluptuous evening, in the heated air,
With hands of subtle and accomplice care,
Spread the insidious net of oblique stars.
ART THOU WAKING?
Art thou waking, my perfume sunny,
My perfume of gilded bees,
Art thou floating along the breeze,
My perfume of sweet honey?
In the hush of the gloam, when my feet
Roam through the rich garden-closes,
Dost thou tell I am coming, thou smell
Of my lilacs, and my warm roses?
Am I not like in this gloam a
Cluster of fruit concealed
By the leaves, and by nothing revealed,
Save in the night its aroma?
Does he know, now the hour is dim,
That I am half opening my hair,
Does he know that it scents the air,
Does its odour reach to him?
Does he feel I am straining my arms?
And that the lilies of my valleys
Are dewy with passion-balm
That for his touching tarries?
ALL OF WHITE AND OF GOLD.
All of white and of gold
Are the pinions of my angels;
But Love
Hath pinions changing.
His sweet wings are turn by turn
The colour of purple and roses,
And the crimson sea where uncloses
The kiss of the sun.
The beautiful wings of my angels
Are very slow,
And open closed.
But the agile wings of Love
Are impatient,
And like hearts never rest.
THE RAIN.
The rain, my sister dear,
The summer rain warm and clear,
Gently flees, gently flies,
Through the moist atmosphere.
Her collar of white pearls
has come undone in the skies.
Blackbirds sing with all your might,
Dance magpies!
Among the branches downward pressed,
Dance flowers, dance every nest,
All that comes from the skies is blest.
To my mouth she approaches
Her wet lips of strawberries wild;
She has touched me with a mouth that smiled,
Everywhere at once,
With her millions of little fingers.
On a lawn
Of sounding flowers,
From the dawn to the evening hours,
And from the evening to the dawn,
She rains and rains again,
She rains with might and main.
Then the sun with golden hair
Dries the bare
Feet of the rain.
AT SUNSET.
At sunset,
Swans of jet,
Or fairies sombre,
Come out of the flowers, and things, and us
These are our shadows.
They advance: the day retreats.
Into the dusk they go,
With a gliding movement slow.
They gather, to each other call,
Seek with noiseless footfall,
And together all
With their wings so light
Make the great night.
But the dawn in the sea
Awakes and takes
His torch, then he
Climbs gleam by gleam,
Climbs in a dream.
Out of the waves arise
His tresses fair,
And blue eyes.
At once, as they were blown
Away, the shadows flee.
Where? Who can see?
Into the earth? Into the sea?
Into a flower? Into a stone?
Into us?
Who knows?
Their wings they close,
And now repose.
It is the morn.
A BARQUE OF GOLD.
In a barque of the Orient
Maidens three are coming back,
Maidens three from the Orient
Are coming in a barque of gold.
One is black,
Her hands the rudder hold,
On her curving lips with their essences of roses
She brings to us strange stories,
In the silence.
One is brown,
She holds the full sail down,
And on her feet are wings,
An angel's mien to us she brings
In her motionless bearing.
But one is fair,
At the prow she is sleeping,
As from the rising sun her hair
The wave is sweeping,
She brings us back in her eyes so bright
All the light.
LILIES THAT SPIN.
Now in this April morning, sweet
With folded shadows and doves cooing,
The dear child with her shy conceit
What is she busy doing?
The blonde trace where her footsteps go
Is lost in the grated garden's alleys;
I do not know, I do not know
The meaning of her cunning sallies.
With a long gown down to her heel,
Pensive and slow, with a silent gesture
Upon the sun at a white wheel
She is spinning a blue linen vesture.
And with blue eyes of bridal bliss
Smiling at her dream that glances,
Weaving golden foliages
Among the lilies of her fancies.

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