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As sick and weak as I, have you ever tasted,
When your being bent under brandished fevers,
When you chewed the theriac of diseases,
The guilty counsel of uselessness?
And sweet sun that kisses a blind man’s extinguished eye?
And flower come in the late December of winter?
And little bird’s feather blown in the iron wind?
And neutral and empty echo toward the mooing heifer?
O the dreams of nothing, in a brain bitten
By the impossible! to love, in its deluding effort!
To build for oneself, to destroy it, a dwelling!
And to pick for oneself, to throw it, a offered fruit!
Sad men, those who believe in their genius
And mad! and who toil, serene in vanity;
But you, who have learned of your futility,
Love your vain desire for its utter irony.
Look within yourself, the illusion of the universe
Dancing; the whole world is the dupe of the world;
Act gratuitously and without remorse; occupy
Your absurd life in mocking its reverse.
Think of those royal lilies, those ducal roses,
Proud of themselves and blooming, apart,
In a garden, worn by centuries, somewhere,
And have never bent their vertical stems.
Useless nonetheless, useless and vain,
Perfumes lost tomorrow, corollas dead tomorrow,
And no one to come open the doors
And make them serve the pale pride of hands.
Emile Verhaeren
Translation generated by Poésies 123 with assistance from the deepseek-chat artificial-intelligence model.
Text published on Poésies 123: https://www.poesies123.com/en/poem-absurd-advice-emile-verhaeren/