The One in the Garden

Poem by Emile Verhaeren Period 19th century

I saw the guardian Angel in such a garden sit
Beneath canopies of irradiant flowers
And vines like voussoirs;
Beside her rose heliotropes in showers.

Her fingers, whose humble and frail rings
Encircled the slenderness of a coral band,
Held faithful pairs of roses
Tied with wool and sealed with a clasp,

A calm, steeped in gold, wove
An air filigreed with dawn
Around her pure brow, which sank
Half into the shadow still.

She wore her veil and her sandals,
Woven of linen, but on the edges,
In bright scrolls, the three theological virtues
Were painted, with hearts leafed in gold.

Her slow hair spread silky
From her shoulder down to the mossy lawns;
The silence unclosed in the childhood of her eyes
Was sweeter than any word is sweet.

All my soul stretched taut
And both arms and haggard desire
I rose toward the soul suspended
In her gaze!

Her eyes were so clear with memory,
They confessed to me days lived alike;
Oh, would the past be changed into future
In inviolable tombs?

It was surely someone having left life
Who brought me miracle and comfort
And the viaticum of her survival
Tutelary, through her death.

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-one-in-the-garden-emile-verhaeren/