the miserable fruit with which the world will perish. In the anxious silence of all the eyes supplicating the sun there, which sinks under the water with the desperation of a cry, this is the plain announcement: "No sign-board now regales you with the spectacle that is inside, for there is no painter now capable of giving even a shadow of it. I bring living (and preserved by sovereign science through the years) a Woman of other days. Some kind of folly, naïve and original, an ecstasy of gold, I know not what, by her called her hair, clings with the grace of some material round a face brightened by the blood-red nudity of her lips. In place of vain clothing, she has a body; and her eyes, resembling precious stones! are not worth that look, which comes from her happy flesh: breasts raised as if full of eternal milk, the points toward the sky; the smooth legs, that keep the salt of the first sea." Remembering their poor spouses, bald, morbid, and full of horrors, the husbands press forward: the women, too, from curiosity, gloomily wish to see. When all shall have contemplated the noble creature, vestige of some epoch already damned, some indifferently, for they will not have had strength to understand, but others, broken-hearted, and with eyelids wet with tears of resignation, will look at each other; while the poets of those times, feeling their dim eyes rekindled, will make their way toward their lamp, their brain for an instant drunk with confused glory, haunted by Rhythm, and forgetful that they exist at an epoch which has survived beauty. APPENDIX II1 No. I The following verses are by Vielé-Griffin, from paga 28 of a volume of his Poems: 1 The translations in Appendices I., II., and IV., are by Louise Maude. The aim of these renderings has been to keep as close to the originals as And here are some verses by the esteemed young poet Verhaeren, which I also take from page 28 of his Works: the obscurity of meaning allowed. The sense (or absence of sense) has therefore been more considered than the form of the verses. 1 1 ATTIRANCES Lointainement, et si étrangement pareils, De grands masques d'argent que la brume recule, Les doux lointaines !— et comme, au fond du crépuscule, C'est toujours du silence, à moins, dans la pâleur On se laisse charmer et troubler de mystère, Sont-ils le souvenir matériel et clair Des éphèbes chrétiens couchés aux catacombes Ou seul, ce qui survit de merveilleux aux tombes Lointainement, combien nous les sentons vouloir Toujours aux horizons du cœur et des pensées, ÉMILE VERHAEREN, Poèmes. ATTRACTIONS Large masks of silver, by mists drawn away, Float round the old suns when faileth the day. They transfix our heart, so immensely our heart, All around is now silence, except when there leap Mysterious trouble and charms us infold, You might think that the dead spoke a silent good-by, Are they the memories, material and bright, Or the marvel alone that survives, in the deep, For their destitute works- we feel it seems, From horizons far-for their errings and pain. In horizons ever of heart and thought, No. 3 And the following is a poem by Moréas, evidently an admirer of Greek beauty. It is from page 28 of a volume of his Poems: ENONE AU CLAIR VISAGE Enone, j'avais cru qu'en aimant ta beauté Ainsi que le chanteur qui chérit Polimnie, Un son bien élevé sur les nerfs de sa lyre. JEAN MORÉAS ENONE Enone, in loving thy beauty, I thought, Where the soul and the body to union are brought, I'd succeed to compose of the worst and the best, Like the bard who adores Polyhymnia divine, And mingling sounds different from the nerves of his lyre, From the grave and the smart draws melodies higher. But, alas! my courage, so faint and nigh spent, The dart that has struck me proves without fail Not to be from that bow which is easily bent No, 't was that other Venus that caused me to smart, And yet that naughty lad, that little hunter bold, |