C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
London
By Emile Verhaeren (1855–1916)
From ‘Six French Poets’: Translation of Amy Lowell
A
ND this London of brass and bronze, my soul, where iron plates clash under sheds, where sails go forth without Notre Dame for star—go forth, away, toward unknown hazards. Sooty, smoky stations, where gas weeps its distant silver melancholies to roads of lightning; where bored animals yawn at the hour which, immensely mournful, tolls from Westminster. And these embankments, infinite with fatal lanterns—Fates whose spindles plunge into darkness—and these drowned sailors, under the petals of mud flowers where the flame throws its light. And these shawls and these gestures of drunken women, and these alcohols of golden letters up to the roofs, and all at once death in the midst of these crowds.
O my soul of the evening, this black London which drags through you!
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