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I looked out through the open shutter, on the flank
Of an abandoned lighthouse scourged by the rain:
Tumultuous trains, beneath tunnels of soot,
Whistled, measured from afar by blood-red signal lamps.
The port, immensely bristling with tall masts,
Slept, oily and heavy, in its asphalt basins;
A single lever, standing on a block of basalt,
Clenched in its black fist an enormous acomas.
And, beneath the black vault of this darkling sky,
One by one, over there, the lanterns withdrew
Toward districts of noise, of joy and taverns,
Where women danced between mirrors of gold.
When, enormous and red wound, a sail, suddenly,
Swelled in the wind, tacked toward the landing piers,
Someone who came from legendary lands
Appeared, his brow compact with pride and disdain.
Like golden swords and lances in the clear light,
He unsheathed his rage and his savage desires
And his hard cries struck the echoes of the shores
Or pierced, from side to side, the shadow and the sea.
He was of Ocean. He was great for having
Bitten every horizon ravaged by storm
And for holding high and tenacious his head
Under the fists of terror that evening held out to him.
Frightening, frightened. He sought the path
Toward another existence burst into miracles,
In a desert of rocks illuminated by oracles,
Where the oak would live, where bronze would speak,
Where all pride would be: to live oneself, in unfoldings
Of savage dread, with, upon oneself, the deep
And thunderous voice of the Gods, who have twisted the world
Full of terror, beneath the cold gold of the firmaments.
And for a thousand years he had defied the lightning,
Raising on the horizon the torsos of his sails
And watching for the signals of the reddest stars
Whose bloody crystals shattered in the sea.
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-of-the-horizon-emile-verhaeren/