Evenings

Poem by Emile Verhaeren Period 19th century

(II)

Under the windows of the nitrous hall that the cold bores
And drills and that misty fogs bathe in vair,
One evening, suddenly frozen, winter opens,
In the hearth, polished with naphtha and phosphorus

That burns: and the pointed coal foams with gold
And the posthumous summer reiterates itself in the gold;
It emeralds a bowl, it turquoises a glass
And multiplies into gold buds its soul still.

Through this fire that destroys it, its joy
Is to make flowers among the chandeliers, live!
And to light its death like a feast. Far off,

When autumn thunders and the wind disjoints
One clenches one’s fists in a knot and the frost scratches…
O this death that one tortures and that blazes!

Emile Verhaeren

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