The East, the West, the South, the North

Poem by Emile Verhaeren Period 19th century

When you walk, your step rhythmic, along the fields,
Love to name, to please yourself,
The south, the west, the east, the north,
Clear and gentle words, terrible and strong words,
That adorn the beautiful poems.

May they evoke for you the woods, the mountains and the sun;
May they evoke for you the sea and the great vermilion port
Illuminating yonder the confines of the earth;
May they evoke for you the bush and the deserts of fire
And the white minaret against the red and blue sky
Or the glittering frost of the polar mountains.

In the month of April, in the month of May,
Your arm swinging, your step rhythmic,
Love to say and say again, to delight in it,
Their authoritative syllables.

On summer days, when noon seethes,
They are like four eagles that, all at once
Beat the space with great mad flights
And travel through the clouds.
On summer days, they are still like
Balls of silver and gold
That trace mountains and valleys,
Immensely, through the variegated harvests.
They are also the horsemen of old winter
Who ride the downpour and whip the squall.

Rime clothes them and fog masks them.
Whether they surge from the plain or from the sea,
God knows toward what immense and formidable joust,
They ravage the crossroads
And the villages and the market towns,
And the trees that circle
The infinite, along the roads.

When you go along a field,
Scan for yourself their powerful names.

Thus, the alert walk and the swift song
That celebrate the East, the West and the South and the North
Will make them as it were enter into the flesh of your body,
With their burning breath and their intrepid flight.
Perhaps they will tell you the star they brushed against
Beyond the ether where other worlds live,
And Perseus and Venus throbbing and fertile,
And the Lyre standing on the starry abyss,
And the Virgin and Vega and the Lion and the Bear,
You will then feel your impetuous being
Find its law in the order and splendor of the heavens
And your dream adjust its impulse and its course
To the golden procession of the stars, up there,
And your strength grow and your countless thoughts
Let fall little by little both their weight and their shadow
And the clear immensity enter your brain.

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-east-the-west-the-south-the-north-emile-verhaeren/