Contemporary Belgian Poetry / Selected and Translated by Jethro Bithell

by Unknown

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 Belovèd grieveth sore,
And plunges her two hands like flowers
Into her eyes whose sorrow showers,
My heart's Belovèd 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 agèd 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, Angélique,
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.

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