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Emile Verhaeren - The Rope-MakerEmile Verhaeren - The Rope-Maker
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In his village grey At foot of the dykes, that encompass him With weary weaving of curves and lines Toward the sea outstretching dim, The rope-maker, visionary white. Stepping backwards along the way, Prudently `twixt his hands combines The distant threads, in their twisting play. That come to him from the infinite. When day is gone. Through ardent, weary evenings, yon The whirr of a wheel can yet be heard; Something by unseen hands is stirred. And parallel o`er the rakes, that trace An even space From point to point along all the way, The flaxen hemp still plaits its chain Ceaseless, for days and weeks amain. With his poor, tired fingers, nimble still. Fearing to break for want of skill The fragments of gold that the gliding light Threads through his toil so scantily-- Passing the walls and the houses by The rope-maker, visionary white, From depths of the evening`s whirlpool dim, Draws the horizons in to him. Horizons that stretch back afar. Where strife, regrets, hates, furies are: Tears of the silence, and the tears That find a voice: serenest years, Or years convulsed with pang and throe: Horizons of the long ago, These gestures of the Past they shew. Of old--as one in sleep, life, errant, strayed Its wondrous morns and fabled evenings through; When God`s right hand toward far Canaan`s blue Traced golden paths, deep in the twilight shade. Of old, `twas life exasperate, huge and tense, Swung savage at some stallion`s mane--life, fleet. With mighty lightnings flashing `neath her feet, Upreared immensely over space immense. Of old, `twas life evoking ardent will; And hell`s red cross and Heaven`s cross of white Each marched, with gleam of steely armours` light. Through streams of blood, to heavens of victory still. Of old--life, livid, foaming, came and went `Mid strokes of tocsin and assassin`s knife; Proscribers, murderers, each with each at strife, While, mad and splendid. Death above them bent. `Twixt fields of flax and of osiers red. On the road where nothing doth move or tread, By houses and walls to left and right The rope-maker, visionary white, From depths of evening`s treasury dim Draws the horizons in to him. Horizons that stretch yonder far. Where work, strifes, ardours, science are; Horizons that change--they pass and glide,               And on their way They shew in mirrors of eventide The mourning image of dark To-day. Here--writhing fires that never rest nor end. Where, in one giant effort all employed, Sages cast down the Gods, to change the void Whither the flights of human science tend. Here--`tis a room where thought, assertive, saith That there are weights exact to gauge her by, That inane ether, only, rounds the sky. And that in phials of glass men breed up death. Here--`tis a workship, where, all fiery bright, Matter intense vibrates with fierce turmoil In vaults where wonders new, `mid stress and toil, Are forged, that can absorb space, time and night. --A palace--of an architecture grown Effete, and weary `neath its hundred years. Whence voices vast invoke, instinct with fears, The thunder in its flights toward the Unknown. On the silent, even road--his eyes Still fixed towards the waning light That skirts the houses and walls as it dies-- The rope-maker, visionary white, From depths of the evening`s halo dim Draws the horizons in to him. Horizons that are there afar Where light, hope, wakenings, strivings are; Horizons that he sees defined As hope for some future, far and kind. Beyond those distant shores and faint That evening on the clouds doth paint. Yon--`mid that distance calm and musical Twin stairs of gold suspend their steps of blue, The sage doth climb them, and the seer too, Starting from sides opposed toward one goal. Yon--contradiction`s lightning-shocks lose power. Doubt`s sullen hand unclenches to the light, The eye sees in their essence laws unite Rays scattered once `mid doctrines of an hour. Yon--keenest spirits pierce beyond the land Of seeming and of death. The heart hath ease, And one would say that Mildness held the keys Of the colossal silence in her hand. Up yon--the God each soul is, once again Creates, expands, gives, finds himself in all; And rises higher, the lowlier he doth fall Before meek tenderness and sacred pain. And there is ardent, living peace--its urns Of even bliss ranged `mid these twilights, where --Embers of hope upon the ashen air-- Each great nocturnal planet steadfast burns. In his village at foot of the dykes, that bend, Sinuous, weary, about him and wend Toward that distance of eddying light, The rope-maker, visionary white. Along by each house and each garden wall. Absorbs in himself the horizons all.
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