The Grand Place, Poem by Emile Verhaeren

The shops of the Grand Place
Mirror their mourning and their past,
And the gold of their worn pediment,
In the sewers that entwine them.

A flag hangs like a rag,
On the red gable of the Bank;
The hour is quaint: a tooth is missing
From the rack of the carillon.

The rain, falling there, grows bored,
Every bell sound seems a knell,
Every movement seems weary,
The hour to come is worth the hour gone by.

The doctor’s façade
Looks at the notary’s,
Here is the authoritative porch
Of the diocesan college.

The shadowy judas holes of the doors
Keep watch on one another from afar;
The tall steeple seems a witness
To so many things that are dead.

The walls are full of memories,
Broken or bitten by rusts
And habit bolts itself therein
Against the assault of futures.

Everything endures there in its well-being.
One lives far from all living noise,
Watching the wind pass by
And the dust at the window.

The servant girls there set going
The gray spinning wheel of existences,
And shape, through their maxims,
A cut-rate wisdom.

The aldermen are sure and keep watch;
Crime has its two fists bound.
Order is placed under the pillow,
And one falls asleep on one’s ears.

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-grand-place-emile-verhaeren/