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Emile Verhaeren - Joy
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O splendid, spacious day, irradiate
With flaming dawns, when earth shows yet more fair
Her ardent beauty, proud, without alloy;
And wakening life breathes out her perfume rare
So potently, that, all intoxicate,
Our ravished being rushes upon joy!

Be thanked, mine eyes, that now
Ye still shine clear beneath my furrowed brow
To see afar, the light vibrating there;
And you my hands, that in the sun yet thrill,
And you, my fingers, that glow golden still
Among the golden fruit upon the wall
        Where hollyhocks stand tall.

Be thanked, my body, that thyself dost bear
Yet firm and swift, and quivering to the touch
Of the quick breezes or of winds profound;
And you, straight frame, and lungs outbreathing wide,
Along the shore or on the mountain-side,
         The sharp and radiant air
That bathes and grips the mighty worlds around!

O festal mornings, calm in loveliness,
Rose whose pure face the dewdrops all caress,
Birds flying toward us, like some presage white,
Gardens of sombre shade or frailest light!

What time the ample summer warms the glade,
I love you, roads, by which came hither late
She who held hidden in her hands my fate.
I love you, distant marshes, woods austere,
And to its depths, I love the earth, where here
Beneath my feet, my dead to rest are laid.

So I exist in all that doth surround
And penetrate me:--all this grassy ground,
These hidden paths, and many a copse of beech:
Clear water, that no clouding shadows reach:
          You have become to me
Myself, because you are my memory.

In you my life prolonged for ever seems,
I shape, I am, all that hath filled my dreams;
In that horizon vast that dazzles me,
Trees shimmering with gold, my pride are ye;
And like the knots upon your trunk, my will
Strengthens my power to sane, stanch labour still.

Rose of the pearl-hued gardens, when you kiss
My brow, a touch of living flame it is;
        To me all seems
One thrill of ardour, beauty, wild caress;
And I, in this world-drunkenness,
So multiply myself in all that gleams
        On dazzled eyes,
That my heart, fainting, vents itself in cries.

O leaps of fervour, strong, profound, and sweet,
As though some great wing swept thee off thy feet!
If thou hast felt them upward hearing thee
        Toward infinity,
Complain not, man, even in the evil day;
Whate`er disaster takes thee for her prey
        Thou to thyself shalt say
That once, for one short instant all supreme
        Which time may not destroy,
Thou yet hast tasted, with quick-beating heart,
        Sweet, formidable joy;
And that thy soul, beguiling thee to set
        As in a dream,
Hath fused thy very being`s inmost part
With the unanimous great founts of power
And that that day supreme, that single hour,
        Hath made a god of thee.
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