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I
To press upon it the weight of your lovely heaviness,
Your frugal and savory double breasts watered
By your blood, your rounded arms polished by rosy skin,
Your belly where red hairs thicken their splendors,
I will weave my verses as, deep in villages,
Seated at the threshold of their house, old basket-makers
Blend the brown and white osiers of their baskets,
In clear patterns, taken from the enamel of tile floors.
They will contain the fermented golds of your body;
And I will carry them like festive flowers,
In massive golden heaps, in the sun, on my head,
Proudly clear, as befits the strong.
II
Your great flesh makes me think of the centaurs’
Whose manes Paul Rubens, with the fire of his brushes,
Set ablaze in the light, arms grown fat,
Breasts pointed toward the green eyes of young lions.
Your blood was theirs, when at dusk,
Beneath some star biting the brazen sky of evening,
Their great voice hailed some fierce Hercules
Whom night had led astray in the sea mist;
And when their senses, tensed with ardor toward caresses,
And their belly forever gaping toward the unknown,
Their arms twisted the lascivious call toward the wiles
Of black monsters, lickers of rut, upon a naked body.
III
What I would choose to symbolize it,
It would be neither lilies, nor sunflowers, nor roses
Opening to brushing winds their corolla in a kiss,
Nor the great water lilies whose morose pulps
And wide cold eyes, charged with eternity,
Yawn upon the clear pond their motionless dreams,
Nor the people of flowers, despotic and whipped
With anger and wind on hostile shores,
No – But all quivering with dawn and sun,
Like jets of blood merging in sheaves,
In full bloom, in full vermilion splendor,
It would be a bed of superb dahlias,
Which, in the fiery autumn of voluptuous days,
In the warm maturity of matter,
Like great red and monstrous teats,
Would stiffen under the golden hands of light.
IV
The strong climb life like a staircase,
Without first seeing that women in their path
Stretch toward them their breasts, their brows and their faces
And their arms widened like espalier branches.
They are the thirsters for sky, nocturnal thicket,
Where fires bush in black landscapes,
And so high do they climb, seduced by omens,
That they reach at last the supreme landing.
There they gather fruits of stars and comets;
Then descend, weary of glory and conquests,
Spirit disappointed, eyes elsewhere, hearts burned;
And looking then at the women who lie in wait for them,
They bow before them, on both knees, and place
Between their golden hands the great worlds stolen.
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-homage-emile-verhaeren/