Tell Me, My Simple and Tranquil Friend

Poem by Emile Verhaeren Period 19th century

Tell me, my simple and tranquil friend,
Tell me, how much does absence, even of a day,
Sadden and stir up love,
And awaken it, in its sleeping burns?

I go to meet those
Who return from the marvelous distances
Where, since dawn, you have gone;
I sit beneath a tree, at the bend of the path;
And, on the road, watching for their coming,
I gaze and gaze, with fervor, at their eyes
Still clear from having seen you.

And I would like to kiss their fingers that have touched you,
And cry out to them words they would not understand,
And I listen for a long time to their steps beating time
Toward the shadow where old evenings hold the night bending low.

Emile Verhaeren

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

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