Perhaps, however, the most sinister poems in Les Campagnes are the Chansons de Fou, with their naïf absurdities and their intuitive reason, where the rhymes laugh and clatter like rows of grinning teeth, and the almost Dureresque Le Fléau, from its exordium,
"La Mort a bu du sang
Au cabaret des Trois Cercueils
La Mort a mis sur le comptoir
Un écu noir,
'C'est pour les cierges, pour les deuils,'"
down to its ghastly climax,
"Et les foules suivaient vers n'importent où,
Le grand squelette aimable et soûl
Qui trimballait sur son cheval bonhomme
L'épouvante de sa personne,
Jusqu'aux lointains de peur et de panique,
Sans éprouver l'horreur de son odeur,
Ni voir danser, sous un repli de sa tunique,
Le trousseau de vers blancs qui lui têtaient le cœur."
The final significance of Les Campagnes lies in its last poem, Le Départ, describing the desertion by the whole country-side of that dead mournful plain which is being eaten up by the town.
"Tandis qu'au loin là-bas
Sous les cieux lourds fuligineux et gras,
Avec son front comme un Thabor,
Avec ses sugoirs noirs et ses rouges haleines
Hallucinant et attirant les gens des plaines,
C'est la ville que le jour plombe et que la nuit éclaire
La ville en plâtre, en stuc, en bois, en marbre, en fer, en or—
Tentaculaire."
It is, however, in Les Villes Tentaculaires, where the fever and indefatigable aspiration of the town are described with a Zolaesque exaltation, that the originality of the departure initiated by Verhaeren is more specifically manifested. For he now boldly stalks forward as the pioneer realist in European poetry. Disregarding alike the orthodox subject-matter and the orthodox terminology of official poesy, he seeks and finds his inspiration in the vast forces at work in actual modern life. The realism of Verhaeren, in somewhat pointed contrast to the realism of some of our own patriotic or fashionable poets, even though such expressions as "cabs" and "steamers" are to be found in his work in the original English, depends for its æsthetic value neither on the swing of its slang nor the egregiousness of its expletives. The hot blast of his sincerity sweeps away at once any impeachment of mere dabbling in the ultra-modern. His diction is frequently brusque, and even red, if we may borrow his favourite colour, if not his favourite adjective; yet it never loses the dignity of authentic poetry. For the poet would seem to have been personally susceptible, in the highest degree, to that peculiar multiplication of vitality and intensification of emotion which is the essential effect produced by big metropoles upon certain temperaments. And this cerebral ecstasy is increased by the consciousness of being on the threshold of a new age, "for the ancient dream is dead, and the new one is now being forged." Thus the poet will wander into The Cathedrals, take pity on the multitudinous misery of the praying hordes, and boom out again and again the refrain:
"Ô ces foules, ces foules
Et la misère et la détresse qui les foulent."
But note the sociological symbolism of the climax:
"Et les vitraux grands de siècles agenouillés
Devant le Christ avec leurs papes immobiles
Et leurs martyrs et leurs héros semblent trembler
Au bruit d'un train lointain qui roule sur la ville."