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Hardy Perennials of Dutch and Flemish Poetry
We've said it before and we'll say it again: Dutch poetry, whether from Flanders or the Netherlands, has a stronger claim to international appreciation than Dutch-language prose. In this field, at least, the small Dutch language area would be great. In Guido Gezelle, Herman Gorter, J.H. Leopold, Paul van Ostaijen, Martinus Nijhoff and Gerrit Achterberg it possesses home-grown poets who would be world-famous if they had written in English. But alas! You hear that quite often; and it may well be true, too.
Nevertheless, the Dutch and Flemings, like other people, have poems - and these are some of them - which everybody knows, or ought to know. Poems which are in every anthology and from which everybody can quote at least one line - usually the first line or the last, and almost always with something of the proverb about it. Poems which everyone should carry in their heads, for use in times of trouble or of joy. Or just because they're so beautiful.
Jan Sanders van Hemessen, Poetry and the Poet. c. 1550. Panel, 159 × 189 cm. Mauritshuis, The Hague.
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Karel van de Woestijne (1878-1929)
Overture
My father's house, where the days passed more slowly,
was quiet, for within the garden's shade it lay
and in the over-arching leaves' tranquillity.
- I was a child, measured life by my mother's stray
laughter, who was not merry, and the regularity
of twilights round the trees, the desultory
years round the placid life of the unstirring day.
And I was happy in the shadow of this life
which walked beside my dreams like a good father...
- The days had given me the strange delight
of knowing how each evening a flock of birds would hover
in the gentle skies of summer, which suffuse
the souls of lowly men with blessed ease
when twilight falls and paints in its own evening hues
the heavy-tranquil fruit upon the peaceful trees.
... Then softly you became part of my life, and we
were like two meagre flowers in the evening of the day.
And I loved you. And though since then I may
have loved many women, with assurance or entreaty,
you I did love; for I saw your child's eyes glow
at leaning blossoms in the gardens, and your face
look on my solitary thoughts and deeds with solace
in my father's house, where the days passed so slow...
From My Parents' House (Het Vaderhuis, 1903)
Translated by Tanis Guest.
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J.H. Leopold (1865-1925)
Oh when I dead shall, dead shall be
come then and whisper, whisper tenderly,
my pale eyes shall I open to thee
and no wonder will in me be.
And no wonder will in me be -
in this love death will only be
a sleeping, sleeping quietly,
a waiting for thee, a waiting for thee.
From Poems (Verzen, 1912)
Translated by P.J. de Kanter (in ‘The Valley of Irdin’, Amsterdam, 1957).
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P.C. Boutens (1870-1943)
Good Death
Good Death whose clear pure piping
Penetrates life grown still,
Drawing smiles of understanding
From the young and beautiful,
For whom the wise and children
Gladly leave their books and play,
At whom only pinched old men
Shiver with cold dismay, -
I count each day bleak and empty
That lacks your beckoning horn;
For to me ever strange and lovely
Is this land of new wine and corn;
For not once did I ever drink here
The water that makes the soul young
But there'd ring out from somewhere near
The air of your distant song.
All the beauty of earth's giving
Leads to you with every breath,
And only then is life living
When it moves us even to death.
From Voices (Stemmen, 1907)
Translated by Tanis Guest.
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Richard Minne (1891-1965)
Days Poor and Rich (IV)
The world's a flute which has mouthpieces by the score.
And each plays his own tune. It makes a sad refrain
in which I cannot hear my own sound any more.
And you? Maybe you too have tapped at many a pane,
and been like me sent packing, sad and sore.
And yet: I dreamed, and hoped; and paid the penalty.
I saw the Alps, and Flanders, and Strassburg on the Rhine.
I loved. I often banged my drum for all to see.
I browsed through books of wisdom old and fine.
I searched with hands and feet - if that can be.
And at the end? - I have, inalienable and lasting,
the solace of my own true song, when I sit quietly
on the high bank and play a tune at evening,
not for all time and space, but for the moment only.
Then l've gained one more happy day. That's no small thing.
From Open House (In den Zoeten Inval, 1926)
Translated by Tanis Guest.
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Paul van Ostaijen (1896-1928)
Recitative
For Gaston Burssens
Under the moon the long river slides by
Above the long river the moon mournfully slides
Under the moon on the long river the canoe slides to the sea
the canoe slides to the sea
with the sliding moon the canoe slides to the sea
Companions then to the sea the canoe the moon and the man
Why do the moon and the man two together slide submissively to the sea
From Poems (Gedichten, 1928)
Translated by Tanis Guest.
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Willem Elsschot (1882-1960)
The Marriage
When he once noticed how the mists of time
were dimming his wife's eyes and snuffing out their glow,
had worn and marked her face and touched her hair with snow,
he turned away from her and regret gnawed at him.
He was beside himself, he cursed and tore his hair,
measured her with his gaze but could desire no more,
he saw the supreme sin become a hellish chore
as she looked up at him with a dying beast's despair.
But die she did not, though his mouth with dreadful stealth
sucked the marrow from her bones, which yet still held her straight.
She dared no longer speak, to question or bemoan her fate,
and trembled where she stood, but lived and kept her health.
He thought: I'll strike her dead and burn the house above her.
I must get my stiffened feet clean of this mould,
run through the fire, splash through the water cold
to find a different country and another lover.
But kill he did not; for between dream and deed
are laws that bar the way, and problems stark and plain,
and melancholy too, which no-one can explain,
which comes at evening time when it is sleep you need.
And so the years went by. The children, now full-grown,
would see the man whom they called Father sitting
beside the fire, silent and unmoving,
with a desolate and a dreadful face, alone.
From Yesterday's Poems (Verzen van vroeger, 1934)
Translated by Tanis Guest.
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H. Marsman (1899-1940)
Thinking of Holland
squat towers and churches
From Poetry (Poëzie, 1938)
Translated by James Brockway (in ‘The Literary Review’, V, 2, Teaneck (NJ), 1961-1962).
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Martinus Nijhoff (1894-1953)
The Bridge at Bommel
I went to look at the new bridge at Bommel.
I saw the bridge. Two facing banks there were,
which once seemed each of them to shun the other,
now neighbours once again. Lying there idle
for a while in the grass, after I'd drunk my tea,
my mind filled with the landscape all around -
let me from that infinity perceive a sound,
a voice filling my ears which spoke to me.
It was a woman. The boat that carried her
came downstream through the bridge, steady and calm.
She was alone on deck, stood at the tiller,
and what she sang, I heard then, was a psalm.
Oh, I thought, oh, that there went my mother.
Praise God, she sang, He'll keep you from all harm.
From New Poems (Nieuwe gedichten, 1934)
Translated by Tanis Guest.
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J.C. Bloem (1887-1966)
Dapper Street
Nature is for the empty, the contented.
And then, what can we boast of in this land?
A hill with a few small villas set against it,
A patch of wood no bigger than your hand.
Give me instead the sombre city highroads,
The waterfront hemmed in between the quays.
Clouds that move across an attic window,
Were ever clouds more beautiful than these?
All things are riches to the unexpectant.
Life holds her wonders hidden from our sight,
Then suddenly reveals them to perfection.
I thought this over, walking through the sleet,
The city grime, one grey and drizzly morning,
Blissfully happy, drenched in Dapper Street.
From Quiet though Sad (1946)
Translated by James Brockway (in ‘Lyrical Holland’, Amsterdam, 1954).
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P.N. van Eyck (1887-1954)
The Gardener and Death
A Persian nobleman speaks:
Early today, my gardener, terror-struck,
Rushed in and cried, ‘Alas, my cursed luck!
I was at work, pruning the rosary;
I turned, and there stood Death and stared at me.
I was afraid and ran, in a cold sweat,
But saw him make the gesture of a threat.
Master, give me your horse, let me be gone!
Before nightfall I'll be in Ispahan.’
He fled. And I, before the day was dark,
Met Death a-strolling in the cedar park.
He said no word, waiting what I should say.
‘What meant that threat you gave my man today?’
He smiled and said, ‘That gesture meant no threat
To scare him, but surprise at finding yet
Him busy at his task at early dawn
Whom I must seize at night in Ispahan.’
From Coming Hither (Herwaarts, 1939)
Translated by A.J. Barnouw (in ‘Lyrical Holland’, Amsterdam, 1954).
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Jan van Nijlen (1884-1965)
Notice to Travellers
Never get on the train without dreams in your luggage,
then you'll find decent lodging in any town or village.
Calmly and patiently sit by the open window;
you are a traveller and safely incognito.
Dredge from your past the fresh eyes of a child,
both cool and keen, excited and beguiled.
All you see growing in the dark spring fields you view,
you can be sure, was planted just for you.
Let the commercial travellers have their say
about the latest films; God smiles and waits his day.
Give every station-master a polite ‘Hello’;
without their signal not one train would ever go.
And if the train won't move, much to the detriment
of your desire and hopes, the hard-won cash you spent,
keep calm and open up your bag; draw on its store
and you will find you've wasted not an hour.
And if the train pulls in to some peculiar place
you'd never even heard of, not once in all your days,
then you have reached your goal; then you learn with surprise
what travel means for wanderers and the truly wise...
Above all, be not amazed when, past trees just like home,
a quite ordinary train transports you straight to Rome.
From Secret Code (Geheimschrift, 1934)
Translated by Tanis Guest.
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M. Vasalis (1909-)
The Idiot in the Bath
With shoulders hunched, eyes screwed tightly shut,
bent over the nurse's arm, unsightly and uncouth,
almost at a run, feet tangling in the mat,
week after week, the idiot takes his bath.
The clouds of vapour rising from the trough
of water calm him down: he's soothed by steam...
and with every stitch of clothing that comes off
he's drawn still deeper into an old, familiar dream.
He folds his skinny arms across his chest
as nurse eases him in until the water grips,
he sighs as if he was slaking his earliest thirst
and slowly a great joy dawns around his lips.
His worried face grows handsome, blank, at ease,
his slender feet stand up like palest flowers,
his long and pallid legs, where aging lowers,
rise out of the green water like the trunks of trees.
In all this green he is as one unborn,
he does not yet know that some fruits are but rind,
he has not lost the wisdom of the body
and does not need the wisdom of the mind.
And every time he's hauled out of his doze
and rubbed down with a brisk towel till he's dry,
then forced back into stiff, unyielding clothes,
he fights against it and will, for a moment, cry.
And every week it is his fate to be
reborn, wrenched from the water's womb, impaired,
and every week it is his destiny
to have remained once more an idiot, and scared.
From Parkland and Deserts (Parken en woestijnen, 1940)
Translated by James Brockway.
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Leo Vroman (1915-)
For the Reader
Printed letters I will show You here
but of my warm lips no living speech
and from this text no hand will reappear.
What can I do? I find You out of reach.
Oh, could I comfort You, then I could cry.
Come, give Your hand this page, my skin;
soften the petrifying print that I am in
and speak the words I have tried living by.
I have written poems beyond recall,
am still a stranger where I think I live,
and whom I hurt l've nothing left to give
It was love that often seemed to make
me fall asleep making my pencil write
the words that slept in this book's night
till now when You read them awake.
Behind this page would be my proper place
where I could be alive again
to look into Your reading face
and ache to see the ebbing of Your pain.
Do not arouse these words for naught;
their nudity would find themselves to blame,
so let Your gaze not reach their shame
unless love is Your driving thought.
Then, read this like a letter nearly
too late, relax, and after these delays
fear not its kisses when it says:
From Poems, Early and Late (Gedichten, vroegere en latere, 1949)
Translated by Leo Vroman.
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Jan Hanlo (1912-1969)
One Morning
For Mai
Half past four one April morning
I was walking and whistling the St Louis Blues
And whistling I thought: may my whistling
be like the song of the great thrush
And what do you know, after a while my
whistling of the St Louis Blues
really was like the song of the great thrush:
From The varnished - Het geverniste (1952)
Translated by James S Holmes (in ‘Dutch Interior. Postwar Poetry of the Netherlands and Flanders’, New York, 1984).
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Lucebert (1924-1994)
I Try in Poetic Fashion
simplicities luminous waters
the expanse of life at its fullest
but if I had been who I was
birth and decay would not have touched me
the road from forlornness to communion
the stones stones beasts beasts birds birds road
as it can be seen to be in my poems
that are snapshots of that road
in this age what was always called
beauty beauty has burnt her face
she no longer comforts man
she comforts the larvae the reptiles the rats
and strikes him with the awareness
of being a breadcrumb on the universe's skirt
the deathblow alone makes us rebellious or
the embrace that leaves us fumbling in despair
heard there she had nothing human left
but the speech defects of the shadow
but those of the earsplitting sunlight
From Apocryphal - The Analphabetical Name (Apocrief - De Analphabetische naam, 1952).
Translated by James S Holmes (in ‘Dutch Interior. Postwar Poetry of the Netherlands and Flanders’, New York, 1984).
All poems selected by Anton Korteweg and Frits Niessen.
Introduction translated by Tanis Guest. |
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