To the North, a Poem by Emile Verhaeren

Poem by Emile Verhaeren Period 19th century

Two old sailors of the North Seas
Were coming home, one autumn evening,
From Sicily and her sovereign isles,
With a people of Sirens,
On board.

Joyful with pride, they were regaining their fjord,
Amid the deceitful mists,
Joyful with pride, they were regaining the North
Under a bleak and monotonous wind,
One evening of sadness and autumn.
From the shore, the people of the port
Watched them, without making a sign:
On the rigging along the masts,
The Sirens, covered in gold,
Twisted, like vines,
The sinuous
Lines of their bodies.
And the people kept silent, not knowing
What was coming from the ocean, over there,
Through the mists;
The ship sailed like a basket of silver
Filled with flesh, with fruits and with moving gold
That advanced, carried on wings of foam.

The Sirens sang
In the rigging of the ship,
Their arms stretched out like lyres,
Their breasts raised like fires;
The Sirens sang
Before the restless evening,
That mowed down on the sea the diurnal lights;
The Sirens sang,
Their bodies pressed around the masts,
But the men of the port, rough and taciturn,
Did not hear them.

They recognized neither their friends
– The two sailors – nor the ship of their country,
Nor the jibs, nor the sails
Whose canvas they had sewn;
They understood nothing of this great dream
That enchanted the sea with its voyages,
Since it was not the same lie
That was taught in their village;
And the ship near the shore
Passed, luring them toward its marvel,
Without anyone, among the trellises,
Gathering the fruits of flesh and the gold.

Emile Verhaeren

Translation generated by Poésies 123 with assistance from the deepseek-chat artificial-intelligence model.

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