To Émile Verhaeren.
Tout bouge—et l'on dirait lea horizons en marche.
Now let the dead past fall into the deep,
With all its sleepy songs and churching chimes,
You are the Bell that gospels mightier times
O'er men who scale the Future's rugged steep,
Not looking back to where the weaklings creep,
But, with for battle-song your iron rimes,
Marching front forwards to the visioned climes
Where hearts are steeled and furious forces sweep.
Of Jewish idols and Greek gods they sang,
But louder than their voice hard anvils rang,
And o'er their gardens smoke trailed waving hair;
But while the old was ruined by the new,
You pointed to a City far more fair;
And, Master, with glad hearts we follow You.
CONTENTS.
[Introduction]
SYLVAIN BONMARIAGE—
[Autumn Evening in the Orchard]
[You Whom I Love in Silence]
THOMAS BRAUN—
[The Benediction of the Nuptial Ring]
[The Benediction of Wine]
[The Benediction of the Cheeses]
ISI-COLLIN—
[To the Muse]
[A Dream]
JEAN DOMINIQUE—
[Thou Whom the Summer Crosses, as a Fawn]
[The Legend of Saint Ursula]
[The Soul's Promise]
[A Secret]
MAX ELSKAMP—
[Of Evening]
[Full of Grace]
[Full of Grace]
[Comforter of the Afflicted]
[Comforter of the Afflicted]
[Comforter of the Afflicted]
[Comforter of the Afflicted]
[To the Eyes]
[To the Mouth]
[For the Ear]
[To-day is the Day of Rest, the Sabbath]
[Mary, Shed your Hair]
[And Mary Reads a Gospel-page]
[And Whether in Gray or in Black Cope]
ANDRÉ FONTAINAS—
[Her Voice]
[Cophetua]
[Desires]
[Adventure]
[Luxury]
[Sea-scape]
[A Propitious Meeting]
[The Hours]
[Awake!]
[Life is Calm]
[Frontispiece]
[Invitation]
[To the Pole]
PAUL GÉRARDY—
[She]
[Evil Love]
[The Owl]
[Of Sad Joy]
[Of Autumn]
[On the Sea]
IWAN GILKIN—
[Psychology]
[The Capital]
[The Penitent]
["Et Eritis Sicut Dii"]
[Vengeance]
[The Song of the Forges]
[Hermaphrodite]
[The Days of Yore]
VALÈRE GILLE—
[Art]
[Thermopylæ]
[A Naval Battle]
ALBERT GIRAUD—
[The Tribunes]
[Cordovans]
[Florise]
[Hecate]
[In the Reign of the Borgias]
[Absorption]
[The Youth Among the Lilies]
[Resignation]
[Voices]
VICTOR KINON—
[The Resurrection of Dreams]
[Midnight]
[Hiding from the World]
[The Gust of Wind]
[The Setting Sun]
CHARLES VAN LERBERGHE—
[Errant Sympathy]
[The Garden Inclosed]
[The Temptation]
[Art Thou Waking?]
[All of White and of Gold]
[The Rain]
[At Sunset]
[A Barque of Gold]
[Lilies that Spin]
GRÉGOIRE LE ROY—
[The Spinster Past]
[Roundel of Old Women]
[Hands]
[My Eyes]
[My Hands]
[Silences]
MAURICE MAETERLINCK
[The Hothouse]
[Orison]
[Hot-house of Weariness]
[Dark Offering]
[The Heart's Foliage]
[Soul]
[Lassitude]
[Tired Wild Beasts]
[Lustreless]
[The Hospital]
[Winter Desires]
[Roundelay of Weariness]
[Burning Glass]
[Looks of Eyes]
[The Soul in the Night]
[Songs]
GEORGES MARLOW—
[Women in Resignation]
[Souls of the Evening]
ALBERT MOCKEL—
[The Girl]
[The Song of Running Water]
[The Goblet]
[The Chandelier]
[The Angel]
[The Man with the Lyre]
[Song of Tears and Laughter]
[The Eternal Bride]
[The Bride of Brides]
GEORGES RAMAEKERS—
[The Thistle]
[Mushrooms]
GEORGES RENCY—
[What Use is Speech?]
[The Source]
[The Flesh]
FERNAND SÉVERIN—
[The Chaplet]
[The Lily of the Valley]
[Sovran State]
[The Kiss of Souls]
[Her Sweet Voice]
[The Refuge]
[Nature]
[The Humble Hope]
[Eleonora D'Este]
[The Thinker]
[A Sage]
[They Who are Worn with Love]
[The Centaur]
ÉMILE VERHAEREN—
[The Old Masters]
[The Cowherd]
[The Art of the Flemings]
[Peasants]
[Fogs]
[On the Coast]
[Homage]
[Canticles]
[Dying Men]
[The Arms of Evening]
[The Mill]
[In Pious Mood]
[The Ferryman]
[The Rain]
[The Fishermen]
[Silence]
[The Rope-Maker]
[Saint George]
[In the North]
[The Town]
[The Music-Hall]
[The Butcher's Stall]
[A Corner of the Quay]
[My Heart is as it Climbed a Steep]
[When I was as a Man that Hopeless Pines]
[Lest Anything Escape from our Embrace]
[I Bring to You as Offering To-night]
[In the Cottage where our Peaceful Love Reposes]
[The Sovran Rhythm]
[BIBLIOGRAPHY]
[NOTES]
INTRODUCTION.
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 Fêtes galantes is imitated in Giraud's Héros 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 Mallarmé, 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, Gérardy, 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, Gérardy (Prussian Walloon), Gilkin (Flemish mother), Gille, Marlow (English grandfather), Mockel (distant German extraction), Rency, Séverin.
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 Vielé-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 Prométhée, however, is in vers libres), Gille, and Séverin, Max Elskamp is a verslibriste only in his use of assonance.