E-text prepared by Christine Bell and Marc D'Hooghe
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Internet Archive
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CONTEMPORARY BELGIAN POETRY

Selected and Translated

by

JETHRO BITHELL

M.A. Lecturer in German at the Birkbeck College, London.

1911

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—

...