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– In the city of ebony and gold,
Dark lady of the crossroads,
What to await, after so many days,
What to await still?
The dogs of black hope have barked, this evening,
Toward the moons of my two eyes,
So long, toward my two silent eyes,
So long and so terribly, this evening,
Toward the moons of my two eyes in black.
Tell me, what fires agitate my mane,
To madden thus these dogs,
And what ardor reigns in my loins
And in my body fleeced with gold?
– Dark lady of the crossroads,
What to await, after such long days,
What to await?
– Toward what black paradise do my breasts set sail,
And toward what horizons roused by tocsin bells?
Tell me, what tumultuous Walhalla of fevers
Or what horses rearing toward love are my lips?
Tell me, what fire and what dread
Am I? for these great dogs, who lick my rage,
And what shipwreck do they hope for in my storm
To seek their death so much in me?
– Dark lady of the crossroads,
What to await after such long days?
– My eyes, like stones of gold,
Shine during carnal nights:
I am beautiful as death
And am public as well as she.
To the sorrowful tracers of lightning
And of desires on my walls,
I offer the catafalque of my flesh
And the candles of funerals.
I give them all my remorse
To sate them at the threshold of the porch,
And the blasphemy of my body
Brandished toward God like a torch.
They know me like a tower
Clothed in iron and centuries,
And they loathe themselves in my love
That maddens them and kills them.
What they love – heart ravaged,
Mind insane, soul uncertain
It is above all the disgust I have
For their kisses or their hatred.
It is to find still in me
Their purple and black parhelion
And my banner of red dread
Disheveled in their madness.
– Dark lady of the crossroads,
What to await, after such long days,
What to await?
– At this hour of old sun laden with evening
That casts itself in golden shards on the sidewalk,
When the city stretches in a serpentine
Of fires and roads, toward that magnet
Always standing on the horizon: woman,
The dogs of despair
Have barked toward the eyes of my soul,
So long toward my two eyes,
So long and so distantly, this evening,
Toward the moons of my two eyes in black!
Tell me, what burning and what ardor my mane
Makes them run along my body of gold?
And with what fury are my loins animated,
Before the hallucinated eyes of the dogs?
And I too, tell me, what Walhalla of fevers
Comes in turn to set my lips on fire
And toward what horizons roused by tocsin bells
And what black paradises do my breasts set sail?
Tell me, what call and what dread
Come this evening to chase me out of myself,
On the squares, in the cities,
Thunderstriking and servile queen?
– Dark lady of the crossroads,
What to await, after such long days,
What to await?
– Alas! when will he come, the one
Who must come – perhaps today –
Who must come toward my waiting
Fatally, and who will come?
The incurable and tormenting madness,
Who then in him will feel it
Rise up to my hallucinating breasts?
Toward the two hands of those who assassinate
My body rises ardent and pale;
I am she who fears nothing
And from whom no one abstains:
I am supreme temptress.
Tell me? Who then must want me, this evening, at the back of a dive?
– Dark lady of the crossroads,
What to await after such long days,
What to await?
– I await such a man with a red knife.
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-the-lady-in-black-emile-verhaeren/