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Abandoned anchors under sullen sheds,
Porches of soot and shadow where voices rush,
Filthy gables, dark lofts, dreary facades
And gutters regular, along the roofs;
And blocks of cast iron and steel hooks and crane necks
And then, at the foot of walls, in the cellars, the echo
Of the step of weary horses on the pavement of streets
And of oars in cadence beating the waves;
And the plaintive vessel, which sleeps and corrodes
In the harbors and suffers; and the haggard calls
Of sirens and the mysterious exodus
Of silent ships, toward the hazards
Of capes and of the sea maddened in storms;
O my soul, what a going away and what suffering!
And what a living always, for the red conquests
Of gold; what a living and what suffering and what dying!
Yet look far off where the islands light up,
Make your dream of incense, of myrrh and coral,
Make your dream of flowers and rose asylums,
Make your dream fanned by the broad fan
Of the oceanic breeze, in the clear of the expanses;
And think of the Orients and think of Benares,
Think of Thebes, think of lost Babylons,
Think of the centuries fallen from Sphinxes and Hermes;
Think of those brazen Gods standing at the threshold of porches,
Of those blue colossi crushing leopards
Between their arms, of those processions of torches
And of priests, through the forests and the ramparts,
At night, under the darting eye of the southern stars;
O my soul whom all distant lands hallucinate!
Think of gulfs, think of deserts, think of the lustral
Caravans, in white gallop in the mornings;
Think that there are perhaps still, through Chaldea,
Some shepherds full of mystery and infinity
Whose mouth never could cry out the idea;
And go, by these paths of flowers and granite,
And go so far and so deep in your memory,
That the hour and the moment abolish themselves for you.
Impossible! – Here is the mud and then the black
Smoke and the tunnels and the dreary belfry
Beating its knell in the mist and which keeps harping
All my slain sorrow and all my pain,
And I remain, my feet stuck to this filth,
Whose odors rise and stink up to my heart.
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-far-away-emile-verhaeren/